


Breaking Seals with Body Counts (I: First Impressions Are Hell)

by bountyhuntergirl



Series: Breaking Seals with Body Counts [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Bottom Castiel, Cussing, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2015, Don't want to give that one away in the tags, Explicit Sexual Content, Gore, I hate tagging shit, Lemme know if I miss anything important, M/M, Oral Sex, Rimming, Top Dean, Torture, Violence, it's finally done awesome, police!au, surprise character - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 16:04:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5011045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bountyhuntergirl/pseuds/bountyhuntergirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean was chasing a murderer, chasing the man Castiel Novak was rumored to be indebted to, partnered with, and with so many shadows lurking in darkness, questions unanswered, psychopaths amuck, surprises looming every which way, being in love was the last of Dean's priorities, and the first of his worries. Dean had broken a few rules over time, to get where he was, but he'd never ached so much to destroy all the real work he'd done, and never yearned for an act so atrocious as slipping into Castiel, a suspected criminal and residential asshole, and letting his skin and mouth become Dean's own drug and dealer, especially with such enemies waiting to strike down on him and Castiel with a fury like they'd never seen before, bigger than the both of them. And this was only the beginning. (police!Dean, suspected criminal!Cas) (Part 1 of TBD)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to [marietwist](http://marietwist.livejournal.com/), who did all of the amazing work for this fic. You've been a great partner, and your art is SPECTACULAR. The rest of the art for this DCBB can be found [here.](http://bitchjerks.co.vu/post/131296183686/breaking-seals-with-body-counts-a-dcbb15-written)
> 
> I also want to thank my beta, Theconsultingdetective. Bella, you're one of my best friends, and I really appreciate you helping me out when this fic was hella frustrating. Thank you for your help and support. (Make sure you guys go check out her amazing DCBB when it's posted in November!)

 

The Rack in Richmond, Kansas, is no more than a gurney-like piece of badly screwed together planks of wood, all rotted and stained with scarlet and time, propped on long hind legs that ascend the machine at a sixty-nine degree angle, precisely. Someone at the precinct will get these numbers and laugh; Bobby Singer is less than indifferent to the racy sarcasm. It’s long, maybe thirty feet, taking up most of the back wall of the barn, and that’s scarier, in itself, than the ropes and hooks and straps that line the head, foot, and, in intervals, down the middle of the wooden machine. Thirty feet tells them how many people can fit on the Rack at a time. The inflatable pools, use twisted from a child’s plaything to a makeshift gutter, tell them why the corpses piling up in dumpsters and in paperwork look shrunken and gaunt, besides the blatant fact that their hearts are no longer beating, lungs no longer expanding or contracting.

 

The light is old, musty, but the dirt-crusted, yellow bulb that shines it, glass cracked years in advance of the events to which it played witness, hanging from a long, looped piece of copper wire hooked in the ceiling, illuminates what of the room needs to be seen. It also makes the entire barn feel colder, the shadows filled with absent eyes of demons, hidden shades of monsters. The hooks and chains attached to the Rack are empty, except for one at the end, clipped around a leg, severed at the knee. One of the pools becomes a bucket for Kevin Tran, who has to vomit into it at the sight; though always a squeamish one, his notes and observations, thankfully, come back thorough and detailed every time.

 

On the wall is a series of tick marks, scrawled messily in black sharpie, like some kind of casual afterthought. There are fifty tick marks, and Bobby makes the connection instantly: a tick mark each, one to correspond with each body lying in a morgue. The bodies have all sported a number on the backs of their hands ( _12,_ a father; _37,_ a homeless woman; _3,_ a little girl with her hair still in pigtails and her tutu torn--) and now Bobby can conclude how the numbers parallel their victims. Fifty victims, each with a numerical label. Fifty deaths.

 

The officers fan out, and Bobby moves forward to give the leftover leg a disgusted look. If it had flipped him off, lying limp and gray, it still wouldn't have been the strangest thing Bobby had ever seen, especially not in this job. He lets Benny LaFitte come forward, new captain's badge gleaming on his chest, slightly puffed up but not with pride, rather with distaste at the situation.

 

“This it?” Benny asks. “The first one?” Bobby nods, face impassive. “How do you know?”

 

“Bigger than the others, for one,” Bobby sighs. “From what we already got on the wood, s’at least a couple’a months older than the other three versions we found. S’got blood from more people than the other ones, too.”

 

“Do I needta’ call in a team?”

 

“Already done,” Bobby says idly, touching one of the iron cuffs on the Rack, as if to see if it’s real. The insides are still slippery, wet with blood that hasn’t quite dried. Bobby screws up his face in disgust. A small smear of red comes back on the tip of his pointer finger as he pulls away; he wipes it off easily on the leg of his pants. “What’s the time?”

 

“Three thirty-eight.”

 

Bobby nods, accepting this. “What time did’ya get on shift?”

 

“‘Bout eight-thirty.”

 

Bobby hums, eyes raking over Kevin’s pale face as he takes notes, hand shaking.

 

“Andrea give’ya any shit?”

 

Benny shrugs. “I had dinner, and I said ‘night to the kids. She knows this is important.”

 

Bobby nods; the conversation is arbitrary, but Bobby prefers it in situations like this one. It makes the scene feel less like a giant to contain, makes it, somehow, easier to process. Seventy two people are dead, but there are three in Benny’s home, safe and sound, alive. One day, Bobby might have to show up at the LaFitte door, flag and captain’s badge in his hands, but thoughts like that make him remember that he did sign up for this, after all, and being the Chief means being made of stone. He puts the thought away; he’s seen Benny come out of bigger scrapes than a psychopath with an attitude. He sees Henriksen pull off the lid of a trash can in his peripheral; it’s full of clothes, button downs and shoes and lace lingerie. Viktor lowers his gun, and grabs an evidence bag.

 

Bobby’s pager goes off, and he pulls it out, adjusting his cap as he reads. He squints in the dusty light, and hits close on the message, packing the damn thing back into his pants pocket. He hates good-news-bad-news situations, and dealing with them for the past three months has put him in a perpetual state of “rip your balls off” pissed. He huffs, patting his pocket before reaching in for the set of car keys shoved there, yanking them out, key ring around his finger. “Harville,” he snaps, and her blonde head jerks up from where she’s examining one of the Rack’s supporting beams. “Yer’ with me. Let’s go.”

 

She raises a brow, but doesn’t argue, flicking the safety back on her gun and coming around the wooden instrument to follow Bobby to his truck. “Bobby?” she asks (she’s blatantly refused to call him sir, in the past, and he’s got more important shit to worry about than his title), curious, but he gives no answer, climbing in the driver’s seat and slamming the door to let off nerves. She snaps her mouth shut, and hikes herself up into the passenger’s seat, shutting her door and tugging on her seatbelt, quiet.

 

The hour-long ride back to the precinct is uncomfortably silent, but Bobby’s too focused on the matter at hand to worry about Jo’s puzzled presence. His pager buzzes again, but he ignores it; he has no intention of debating (again) the moral compass of the chief of police answering his messages while driving, even though he’s been driving a _significant_ amount longer than she, and more so, almost anyone else in the Lawrence Police Department. Young people-- that is, younger than him, really-- as he’s decided, have little consciousness about common sense anymore, and, more so, that they’ve grown up in environments so protected that they don’t know how to process a life lived beyond their bubbles of safety. What’s life without risks, after all? Bobby finds it irritating, at points, to remember that chief of police means a degree more responsibility than he might’ve taken as maybe a mechanic, or salesman, but he also knows what he’s found his duty in, really, and that hasn’t changed in the long twenty years he’s been in the force.

 

He finally pulls up outside the precinct, and Jo jumps out of the car, curious, following Bobby inside as he checks the second message over offhandedly, skimming the words over twice before sliding the pager away again. Sam’s waiting quietly, leaning on Ellen’s desk and spinning a quarter patiently between his thumbs on the counter top. He looks up when Bobby and Jo approach, straightening back to his hulking near-seven feet, slipping the coin back into his pocket. “Hey.”

 

“Hey,” Bobby grunts, stopping before him, looking comparably short. “We got ‘em?” Sam nods.

 

“He’s in the holding cell. He’s not very happy about it, either.”

 

Bobby shrugs; comfort is the least of his problems, thank you very much. “Where’s yer’ brother?”

 

Sam screws his face up in a bitter look. He slips his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. “Sleeping. I called and left a message.”

 

Bobby huffs. “Try again. We need that boy.”

 

“I could do it,” Sam argues, but Bobby shakes his head.

 

“This guy’s a special kind, kid. Don’t want ya’ losin’ your cool.”

 

Sam looks irked. “ _Once,_ Bobby.”

 

“Twice,” the older man corrects easily. “It ain’t yer’ fault, kid. But I ain’t gonna put ya’ with someone with a better poker face than ya’.”

 

Sam grits his teeth testily, but thankfully the boy’s learned where not to push the issue any further; his brother, on the other hand, has not, and sometimes Bobby would like to slap them both upside the head for the sheer fatuity that John Winchester built into them. Differently, mind you. Sam’s the kind of guy that’s sweet, sure, understanding, but Bobby’s also seen him at extremes for more intense cases. It’s not that Sam’s inept, because both Bobby and Sam know better than to think that; however, Sam’s got his emotions on his side, and having those turn on you in an interrogation is a weakness Bobby can’t afford to risk at the moment.

 

Dean, on the other hand, is like stone in these kinds of things. Poker face of steel, yadda yadda. Sometimes the boy needs some emotions, though. Watching Dean deliver casualty reports to the families of lost loved ones is sort of like watching a toddler drive a motorcycle. Bobby doesn’t bother with training wheels, since Sam’s a living pair, really, so Dean gets left to the criminal questioning, and Bobby lets Sam take care of the grieving. It’s better that way, after all.

 

“Did you really find it?” Sam’s brusque tone cuts into Bobby’s reflections, and Bobby chooses, for convenience’s sake, not to roll his eyes at the boy’s lingering aggravation. He’ll get over it. Bobby nods instead, adjusting his cap again.

 

“What’s it like?”

 

“Splinter-y,” Bobby says dryly. “Thing’s a massive ledger, much bigger than the other versions. Don’t need a record book to think about how many this fucker’s put up on it.” Sam cringed.

 

“Are they bringing it in?” he asks, frowning when Bobby sighs and shakes his head. “Why not?”

 

“Naomi actually thinks the bastard’s gonna show back up there,” Bobby muttered lowly, choosing to roll his eyes this time. “Just like she thinks he will with all the others. She’s wastin’ her fuckin’ time puttin’ _another_ team out to guard these things. God knows who thought it was a good idea t’put her in a position of power.”

 

Sam smiles weakly, irritation waning. “She’s a bitch,” he agrees.

 

Jo, who Bobby’s half forgotten, scoffs from behind him.

 

“Hello?” she says curtly, patience just as easily fractured as Dean Winchester’s. “Is there a reason I’m actually here, or is it just for show?”

 

“Quit yer’ yappin’,” Bobby snaps. “I didn’t need every one’a my best out there. ‘Specially not when we got this guy in the building.”

 

“Who is he, anyway?” she pries, butting for information. “He’s not _the_ guy, is he?”

 

Sam shakes his head. “We have reason to suspect that he’s a witness to some of these murders,” he explains. “He could be an accomplice, even. We don’t know. That’s why we brought him in.”

 

Jo frowns. “Reason? What kind of reason?”

 

Sam groans. “Drug stuff, mostly. When we brought in that girl last week, Hannah-- she gave us the name, the location. He’s not her dealer, but she says he’s the dealer for _her_ dealer. Not to mention she and he were… well. Intimate.”

 

“I still don’t understand,” she frowns. “What does drugs have to do with the guy you brought in? I don’t see any connection.”

 

“Apparently Hannah was with him last Tuesday, when he was working a deal with one of his normal clients,” Sam explains. “Guy named Ephriam. Ephriam tried to cheat him out of his money and get away with the drugs.” Sam shakes his head. “We found Ephriam’s body when we found the Rack set up in Harveyville.”

 

Jo’s eyes light up. “You think they might be working together? The guy gets the murderer his drugs, and the murderer takes care of anyone that he doesn’t like? Keeps him from getting his hands dirty?”

 

“Wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?” Sam says. “Whoever this psychopath is, running around and slaughtering these people, he seems pretty fucking crazy. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were on drugs, too. It’s more than likely that he is, really. Wouldn’t be the first time two criminals were in cahoots like this.”

 

He sighs, gives Bobby a look. “We caught him. Barely. He’s fast, man. Scrappy. We would have lost him, too, if Charlie hadn’t _fallen_ on him.”

 

Bobby groans; Jo looks immensely proud of Charlie's, albeit unusual, success.

 

"Knew that girl was good in the field," Ellen chimes easily from her desk, typing something down on her computer, and Bobby rolls his eyes again.

 

"C'mon," he tilts his head toward the hallway, starting for the cell block with Sam and Jo in haul. "I want to meet this Novak kid for myself.”

 

~*~

 

The man lying next to Dean in bed groans in complaint when Dean's phone goes off at four thirty in the morning, grabbing the pillow neither of them are using and covering his head with it.

 

_“Fuck,”_ he moans sleepily, while Dean sighs and nearly knocks his alarm clock off the bedside table, his hand flopping around for his phone until he finds it, yanking it up and hitting the answer button, putting it to his ear.

 

_“What?”_ he demands in a hiss that says _I’m-too-tired-for-this-bullshit-so-talk-fast._ “Sam, fuck it all, I’m _sleeping--”_

 

“We got Novak in,” Sam cuts him off, and Dean’s not hungover enough that he keeps his complaints going, sitting up slowly to let the blood run down from his head without making his newfound soberness even worse.

 

“When?” Dean demands. The man next to him peeks out from under Dean’s pillow with one squinted, scrutinizing eye, watching him exhaustedly.

 

“About an hour ago. Bobby wants you here, now.”

 

Dean moans tiredly, choosing childishness for just a moment. He’d only gotten off work a mere three hours previous, and of that he’d managed to hit up a bar, and get in a few drinks before banging the stranger next to him, apparently. He couldn’t have been asleep more than an hour, and a sleepless Dean was _not_ a happy Dean.

 

“Come _on,_ Sam,” Dean whines. “I’m _tired!”_

 

“And we’re hunting a serial killer!” Sam argues fiercely. “Your beauty rest doesn’t take precedence over a _terrorist!”_

 

“Why can’t _you_ do it?”

 

He can almost hear Sam grind his teeth in annoyance and frustration. “Just get down here,” Sam snaps. “Now.”

 

Dean huffs. _“Fine,_ bitch.Gimme a half hour.”

 

“Hurry,” Sam insists, before hanging up abruptly.

 

Dean sighs heavily, tiredly, running his hand through his hair and over his face before moving to get up. His bedmate pulls the pillow off his head, peering up at him.

 

“Where are you going?” he complains, and Dean wants to groan.

 

“Work,” he says instead, staggering over to his chest of drawers, grabbing a clean pair of boxers and yanking them on before digging in a lower shelf for a shirt.

 

“Why?” the man persists.

 

“That’s private,” Dean grumbles, because that usually gets strangers he’s slept with to leave him alone about things. He shrugs on his shirt, white and pressed, doing up the buttons with years of experience in his fingers.

 

“So?”

 

Dean rolls his eyes, and gives the man a terse look. “Are you going to get up?” he asks, too frustrated to care if he sounds rude as he grabs his slacks from the day before, smelling them carefully before deeming them acceptable and pulling them on. The man gives him a slightly nasty look in return before giving in and getting out of Dean’s bed, moving down the line of clothes they’d stripped from each other and left on the floor just a while ago, picking out his own clothes and pulling them on.

 

They dress in silence, Dean pulling on a tie and suit jacket while the man tugs on wrinkled jeans and tennis shoes, pulling on a coat over a maroon shirt with Schwinn’s logo printed across the front. Dean almost makes a comment, almost (what can he say, he’s a sucker for the classics), but instead he just rolls on his socks and slips on his dress shoes before grabbing his phone, wallet, and keys.

 

“Can I take you somewhere?” he offers the man, and the guy nods, waiting with his hands shoved in his pockets as Dean ducks into the bathroom, taking a quick brushing to his teeth, washing out the smell of liquor and sex with a gargle of mouthwash and dash of cologne. He runs his fingers through his hair again, fixing it’s messiness, and he yawns as he exits the bathroom, turning out the light and leading his one night stand out of the house.

 

He better get a break-room bagel for this shit.

 

~*~

 

“Kid” turns out to be a relative term, since the man sitting in the holding cell, impassive, calm, is significantly younger than Bobby himself, but can’t be younger than about twenty-three, twenty-four or so. His hair is dark and all over the place, like it’s never seen a brush, and his clothes sort of accentuate the same idea, jeans torn at the heels, a little too long so that the man’s steps have chafed them until they’ve gained a selection of ripped holes and ribbed fabric over time. His shirt is clean at least, blue with a checkered plaid design, but the hoodie thrown over it, red and faded, looks at least a size too small, just enough to be comfortable, but barely.

 

He’s on his back on the metal slab that serves as a bench, or bed, facing away from the cell bars, legs stretching up the cement wall, heels tapping the gray bricks with a sense of boredom. Bobby’s surprised the man hasn’t just decided to slip through the cell bars and walk away; he’s thin, not gauntly so, but enough to make an impression about the kind of lifestyle he’s ended up in. Still, there’s an edge to his jaw that makes Bobby sure there’s some muscle stealthily hidden under the man’s clothes, probably wiry, lining his thin limbs.

 

Bobby grunts, knocking on the bars, and the man tilts his head back curiously to look. Compared to the rest of him, his eyes shine, big, blue things that seem to see right through you, right _into_ you, dissecting with merely a glance. Bobby narrows his own pair, irritable at that alone.

 

“C’mon,” he huffs, unlocking the cell and pushing open the sliding door. “Sam, get yer’ cuffs.”

 

Sam nods, pulling them from his belt loop as Novak sighs, as if this whole situation is just another dull waiting line at the DMV. He swivels his hips, legs falling sideways in a motion that maneuvers his body into an upright position, taking a moment to compose himself, blood rushing from his head back into his feet, before standing, approaching the officers calmly, old sneakers padding almost silently across the cell floor. He’s a quiet kind of man, perhaps in both manner and personality.

 

Novak turns easily, letting Sam snap the cuffs on his wrists, locking them behind his back, and Bobby gets the feeling the man’s been in this situation at least once before, if not multiple times. Or maybe he’s just that kind of man, Bobby supposes as he leads them toward the interrogation room, the kind of man that always has the Ace up his sleeve, the kind that can drink and drink and still talk like he’s stone-cold sober. Some are born like that, after all, with disadvantage in their wallets but the upper hand in their brains, in their biology.

 

Bobby heads into the room that shares a long wall with the interrogation room, peering through the one-way mirror as Sam and Jo get Novak’s wrists uncuffed long enough to loop the chain of them through a large iron ring set in the old steel table, before snapping the circlets back around his nimble wrists, locking the man in. Novak’s placid expression doesn’t change; if anything, he just looks relaxed as Jo and Sam take the precautions to insure Novak’s secure stay.

 

Bobby looks up when the door to the monitor room opens, and he scowls at the head of mousy hair and green eyes that looks inside. “ _Boy--”_

 

“Come on, Bobby,” Dean grumbles, cutting him off, straightening his tie and shoving his hands in his pockets in a fashion identical to Sam’s; it’s a John Winchester trait, but thankfully it’s not one that was beaten into the pair of them. “I worked four to twelve yesterday and I work ten to six today, and I finally got the chance to get some goddamn sleep, and then Sasquatch woke me _up--”_

 

“This case is _federally_ important, idjit,” Bobby grits at him. “The Bureau’s makin’ up the rules, the least we could have is our best interrogator in the house.”

 

“Flattering,” Dean says dryly, and Bobby wants to clap him upside the head a little. Dean flicks his eyes to the glass, gaze raking over Novak's form on the other side. His gaze is tired, but intrigued; Dean's drive was fueled almost solely on curiosity, and Novak was, indeed, a curious man.

 

"This ain't _the_ guy, then?"

 

"Nah. Bureau's got reason to believe that he's a part'a the killin's."

 

"Reason being...?"

 

"If they told me everythin', son, I'd know what to say," Bobby sighs. He shakes his head. "Dunno what their specific reason is. I know this guy's number one when it comes'ta gettin' a good snort."

 

Dean scoffs, crossing his arms. "Sam called me in for a fuckin' drug dealer?"

 

"Told you, kid, the Bureau--"

 

"The Bureau this, the Bureau that," Dean snaps, ignoring Bobby's leveled glare. "You need a shot of whiskey, old man."

 

"Watch it," Bobby said coolly, as Sam and Jo left Novak alone, moving to join the Chief and the older Winchester. "Would you get in there and do yer' fuckin' job?"

 

"It ain't my job to question cocaine addicts."

 

"He isn't on cocaine," Sam pipes in suddenly, drawing Dean and Bobby's attention. "He's not on anything."

 

"Cut the crap, Princess, I'm not in the mood."

 

"I'm serious," Sam sneers at Dean, both riling with tired aggravation. "His blood's completely clean. Like, no drugs, _period."_

 

Bobby's brows touch where his hairline had once been. "Ever?"

 

Sam nods, looking to him. "They took his blood when he got here. I just checked the results, and there's nothing. They thought we could get him on drug abuse charges while he was here, obviously, even if he’s not with our psycho-murderer, but there's nothing in his system, and there was nothing when we caught him. He's practically clean."

 

"Yeah," Dean snorts. "He's only clean to keep from being arrested."

 

"Well, yeah," Sam rolls his eyes. "Duh. We still can't arrest him, now. If he checks out on accomplice charges, too, eventually we have to let him go.”

 

Bobby groans. “Right,” he huffs, waving at Dean. “So git. Interrogate him. The faster we have somethin’, the better. The toll’s to fifty, now, we gotta get movin’.”

 

Dean scowls. “It was thirty-nine last night.”

 

“That was last night. Get movin’.”

 

Dean exhales, huffing, running his hand irritably through his hair before snatching the files in Sam’s hand. He straightens his tie and belt, shoving his hand back over his hair to flatten it again before heading from the room and to Interrogation, pulling open the door easily, letting himself inside and shutting it behind him.

 

~*~

 

Dean takes in the man’s appearance, a subtle examination that gives him a first impression; he’s good at first impressions, but that, in contrast, is not always a good thing. Black hair, limber form. The eyes almost startle him, _almost,_ mostly because they’re deep and inquisitive, watching Dean with a curiosity that is not only calm, but unnervingly so. It matches his own interest, in a way, though the man's seems to show on his face, while Dean is careful to keep it in his mind, deliberate in the cool set of his expression, his jaw.

 

He sits on the other side of the metal table, silent for the moment, opening the manila folder to read. _Novak, Castiel E._ , as his file labels him, is still watching him, easily, but Dean is undeterred. He’s been under the eye of robbers, of murderers and men who laid a bruising hand on their wives, their children. He’s been under the slobbering gaze of cannibals, of pedophiles and child traffickers. He's seen serial killers before, and while serial usually meant three or four instead of twenty times that, this man will not change how Dean sees the blood on his hands, a few drops or a few gallons.

 

The information comes easily as he skims the black text on matte form. _Age: twenty four. Sex: Male. Height: five foot eleven. Race: Caucasian. DOB: 8/20/91. Occupation: Unknown._

 

Dean snorts internally at that, murmuring ‘Unknown’ to himself in silence. Across the table, Novak is still watching him quietly, relaxed, looking unperturbed by his disposition. The mirror reflects the two of them, sitting quietly at the steel table, but Dean can feel the others’ eyes from the monitor room, watching, probably inpatient. Usually Dean’s system made the suspect impatient, but this one just sits back and picks idly at a fingernail. Waiting, maybe. Or just uncaring.

 

Finally, Dean looks up, poker face on, easy. “You’re Castiel Novak?” he hums. The man raises his brows. Dean matches the look, a tactic of mocking. “Were you informed of your Miranda Rights before you were brought in?”

 

The man’s voice surprises him; Dean expects a tone laced with years of drug abuse and vodka mixed with tequila shots, but it comes out smooth and deep, almost to a velvety extent, like he’s used to lying to people. Dean’s not surprised at this thought; he’s only surprised that it sounds as clean as the record says he is.

 

“Forcefully.”

 

Dean smirks, just a little. “I apologize for the service.”

 

“Your brother is unnecessarily butch,” Castiel says dryly. Dean’s brows go a little higher, but he doesn’t question Castiel’s knowledge of his and Sam’s siblinghood.

 

“Really.”

 

“Really,” Castiel hums. His lips twitch, once. “It must be a family trait, the compensating and all.”

 

Dean grins, but it’s not a sign of his poker face going down. Rather, it’s entertainment; the ones that try to provoke him back are far more interesting than the angry ones, the defiant ones, the brooding ones. He has a vaguely masochistic satisfaction in watching guilty felons try to worm their way out of the crime hanging above their heads, forming their own noose, their own gallows.

 

“Do you want a cigarette?” he asks, casual.

 

“No thank you,” Castiel replies, plainly. “I don’t smoke.”

 

“Is that right?”

 

“Yes. Feel free to have one, yourself, however,” Castiel drawls. “Secondhand doesn’t bother me.”

 

“I don’t smoke.”

 

“Is that right?”

 

Dean’s smile doesn’t falter; he picks idly at the bottom right corner of the paper before him, topping the stack of files. “You’re an interesting character.”

 

“I try my hardest.”

 

“Your record’s oddly clean,” Dean goes on. “Weird, huh?”

 

“Why is that odd?” Castiel asks, cocking his head to watch Dean curiously. The man’s like a snake: coy, sleek. Intentional. The only thing that deters Dean is the gleam of bright blue eyes boring into Dean like headlights. The rest of Castiel Novak is simple; the rest of his world, drugs and murders and robberies, a criminal’s world, is simple.

 

“We’ve heard a fair few things about you.”

 

Castiel Novak smirks; there’s nothing genuine about it, period. “If it’s about my, ah, flexibility,” he hums, “then I assure you, what you’ve heard is very true.”

 

“Flexibility.”

 

“I’m very, well, _supple._ Agile. Springy, if you will.”

 

“Funny.”

 

“It’s not a joke,” Castiel hums, smirk still plastered on, unbreakable. For the moment. “And I happen to like men in uniform.”

 

“I guess you’re in the right place, then.”

 

Castiel tugs at his handcuffs once with a hum. “Very softcore.”

 

“You said secondhand smoke doesn't bother you,” Dean ignores him, moving on; there's a job to be done, and if he's persistent enough, casually so, of course, then he can have this wrapped up before his day shift. “Why's that?”

 

“I'm used to it.”

 

“Used to it.”

 

Castiel shrugs, and picks at his thumbnail.

 

“Why would you say you're, ah, 'used to it'?”

 

“I'm sorry,” Castiel says dryly, sounding more bored than anything else, “that sounds like a question a lawyer should be present for.”

 

“You haven't asked for a lawyer,” Dean hums. “Do you want one?”

 

“Not really.”

 

“Then why bring it up?”

 

Castiel smiles wryly. “Lawyers make you look guilty, Detective Winchester, and I never miss the opportunity to play the part of innocent. I only meet cops every so often.”

 

Dean snorts, brows rising again. “So you've been arrested before.”

 

“Sure,” Castiel hums. “Except I'm usually chained to the headboard of a motel room bed.”

 

Dean purses his lips, leaning forward on his elbows. “Do you know why you're here, Castiel?” The name is foreign on his tongue, long and strange, ironically heavenly for such an individual.

 

“Not on drug charges,” Castiel says simply. “Since that's what you sound like you're trying to catch me on.”

 

“You look like the kind of man that reads the paper. Watches the news.”

 

“What can I say? I'm a listener, not a talker.”

 

“You like to know what's going on around you,” Dean grabs at the first string. “You like to keep up, stay on top of the situation.”

 

“Doesn't everyone?” Castiel asks, shifting to his left hip so he can flip the cross of his legs. “I have a firm belief in the power of knowledge.”

 

“What kind of knowledge?”

 

“The useful kind.”

 

“Useful is subjective,” Dean says, grabbing another thread. Castiel's eyes flit to the ceiling, like he's contemplating this, and after a moment he nods.

 

“I'll give you that one,” Castiel agrees. “But, in rebuttal, useful information really isn't all that widely varied among people.”

 

“Care to explain?”

 

Castiel squints slightly, turning his gaze back down to Dean, cockiness replaced with curiosity. “Consider the world,” he says after a moment. “We live in a world of destruction. Earthquakes. Tornadoes. Tsunamis. People all over the globe live in poverty, and famine, and submission. Democracy wants to bury communism. Atheism wants to bury Christianity. People groups form to change the world, or whatever they believe ten dollars a month from their subscribers can do.”

 

“So?” Dean asks flatly, not impressed by Castiel's seemingly casual knack for grand epiphanies.

 

“So,” Castiel goes on, as if he hadn't been interrupted. “That's where we find our useful information.”

 

“You're not making sense.”

 

Castiel pauses a moment, eyes flitting around the room, before returning to Dean with a cool expression. “Say, hypothetically... you have a serial killer,” he says, voice quiet with interest. Knowing. “A terrorist,” he goes on. “Someone with blood on their hands, someone who can break into your home and slaughter your children, the people you care about.” He winds his fingers together. “We seek out that someone. The general populous wants to know his face, wants to know that where he is isn't in smoke or thin air, like a ghost, but on a GPS, in a-” he jangles his cuffs. “In a locked box. Useful information isn't varied because we all seek survival.”

 

Castiel's lip twitches once with intrigue. “Humanity seeks similarity in fear, Detective Winchester.”

 

There it is. Dean watches him carefully. “That's quite a metaphor,” he says lowly, considering. “I'm curious, though.”

 

“Curious?”

 

“Why your 'hypothetical' terrorist is a 'he',” Dean says, eyes on Castiel's. He yanks a third string.

 

Castiel looks undeterred. “General term.”

 

“Or a Freudian slip,” Dean persists.

 

“Whatever fits into your box, Detective Winchester.”

 

“I don't believe I told you my name, either,” Dean says coolly.

 

“You didn't.”

 

“And I don't recall wearing a name tag at any point during our interview, so it'll be interesting to see where you found out my name.”

 

“Maybe we've met before,” Castiel smiles dryly, winking.

 

Dean snorts. “Not likely.”

 

“You'd be surprised how many of you are sexually undetermined.”

 

“Trust me, I’m pretty damn determined,” Dean hums. “I just wouldn’t be caught with some whore off the street.”

 

Castiel’s smile doesn’t fall, but it’s definitely forced now, eyes cold in their sockets. “Is that so.”

 

“Oh, it’s very much so,” Dean smirks.

 

Castiel says nothing, silent for the first time, face unreadable through his fake smile, and Dean feels a sense of satisfaction, however small. Dean straightens the files between his hands, and stands.

  
“I think I hear my coffee calling,” he says easily, turning for the door. “It’s five in the fucking morning anyway, huh? Sit tight. When I get back, we’ll talk about the Rack.”


	2. Chapter 2

Dean manages to chug down about four styrofoam cups of coffee and a bagel (or three) by the time he returns to the interrogation room, eyes a little red around the edges, yawning, watching Castiel through the two-way as he readies himself for the second round of questioning. The words “free” and “time” did not fit together in Bobby’s book, at the moment, so Dean was out of luck there.

 

“Hey,” comes Sam’s voice from behind him, grabbing Dean’s exhausted attention. “Getting back in there soon?”

 

“Yeah,” Dean grunts. “Just watching him, you know.” He takes another sip from his cup, the coffee inside tangy, bitter. “You were watching earlier?”

 

Sam nods. “Yeah. He’s, uh, a character.”

 

“Character,” Dean scoffs. “He’s a slippery little bastard, is what he is. Did you hear him talking philosophy to me in there, like he’s in some damn procedural cop show? Thinkin’ he’s Hannibal Lecter or some shit.” Sam quirks an eyebrow.

 

“Somebody’s fussy this morning,” he teases, grinning at his advantage to drag Dean’s exhausted misery on a chain behind his metaphorical truck of bitchitude. “Somebody piss in your Cheerios?”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam hums simply. “Hurry up, huh? We need results.”

 

“You’re so eager to get started, why don’t you fuckin’ do it?” he grunts, flinging his empty cup into the nearest receptacle. Sam grits his teeth, and, if Dean had been on more sleep, he might’ve apologized for the slap to the face memory for Sam.

 

“Would you just get in there and do your job?” Sam snaps. “I’m going back to the monitor room.”

 

He moves away, back into the other room with a slam of the door behind him, and Dean groans, composing himself as he projects some professionalism over his seething irritation at the dark-haired dealer waiting patiently inside the interrogation room. Maybe that’s what bothers him most about Castiel Novak-- his calmness, how quiet he seems, how in control, even when he’s chained like a dog on a leash to the cold metal table that separates the two of them (it’s only one of many things that separates he and Dean, really, and most of those things aren’t tangible). Dean is used to squirmy, nervous cons, cons who relinquish what he wants to hear as soon as he sends a few threats their way. Castiel Novak seems not to care, period, what Dean has to say.

 

In the end, perhaps he just holds nothing to lose.

 

Sighing, Dean eases open the interrogation room door, giving Castiel a little nod as he takes his seat again. “We meet again,” he greets dryly, kicked back in his chair, reclining casually, though his insides twist with disgust.

 

Castiel smirks, sitting back in his own chair as much as he can, his irritatingly calm composure returned in the half hour or so that Dean was gone. "No coffee for me, then?” he purrs, grating on Dean’s highly thin nerves.

 

"Shut up," Dean grouses, voice cold. "You're in holding, this ain't the damn Four Seasons."

 

Castiel blinks, actually seeming confused, likely a rare commodity in the man’s constantly cocky performance. He squints, blue eyes peering at Dean like he were taking him apart and putting him back together again in his mind. “I don’t understand that reference.”

 

Dean snorts. “Does it matter?”

 

Castiel rolls his eyes, picking at a scab on his palm. “You made the comment,” he reminds Dean coolly.

 

“Not a television person?” Dean asks, putting some actual effort into the false curiosity in his voice. “Or is a television above your pay grade?”

 

“My pay grade?” Castiel raises his brows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“I can’t imagine your boss as a very lenient person, really, with his occupation, and all,” Dean hums.

 

"I guess you could have a point," Castiel smirks, "except that one of my favourite things about my job is that I get to be my own boss."

 

"And what is your job?" Dean pries, trying to coax an actual confession out of the slippery sonovabitch. “Since your record is stamped _‘Unknown’.”_

 

Castiel shrugs, leaning on his elbows, fingers still working at the scab on his hand. “Oh, you know. I just work… around.”

 

“‘Around’?” Dean parrots, eyes narrowing, a tone of incredulity not at all remiss in his voice. “And what exactly do you mean, ‘around’?”

 

“Around,” Castiel says flatly. “A preposition meaning in or to many places throughout--”

 

“You’re really a smartass, aren’t you?” Dean hisses coldly, irritation riling up in a sharp burst. “Acting like you couldn’t give one _fuck_ about getting your ass in jail.”

 

“Except I’m not going to jail,” Castiel says simply, and Dean kind of really wants to throttle him. "Not unless you can get me on drug charges that don't exist."

 

"Oh, they'll exist," Dean says coldly. "You can count on that."

 

"Are you sure?" Castiel grins, and Dean's _sure_ that his ears are red with anger. Usually he knows how to keep his cool better, under control, really he does, but right now he's sleep deprived, still hungry as fuck, and _pissed._ The momentary relief from nickel shots, a good smoke, and a half-ass one night stand isn’t enough to give him some relief.

 

"We already have enough information to convict your ass," Dean hisses, knowing it's a fluke. It's a common interrogation technique, enough to startle many convicts into confessing on accident. Dean's not against falling to such levels, after all, and in this line of work sometimes you have to belly through the mud to come out standing against the other man. "So you might as well just fucking fess up."

 

"But if you had enough information to convict me," Cas purrs, eyes twinkling (Dean wants to punch him again), "then you wouldn't be wasting time asking me questions, would you?"

 

"Maybe I just like seeing how much of a fuck up your kind is," Dean says flatly.

 

“My _kind,_ huh?" Castiel asks coolly. "You mean innocents?"

 

"I mean low-lives like you that actually think you're worth something," Dean snaps. "That think you can get away with whatever crap you pull, even though none of you ever have."

 

"I beg to differ on that part, Detective Winchester."

 

"Oh, I'm sorry," Dean scoffs. "Need some time to come up with another grand assessment of the universe, Mister Hawking?"

 

Castiel grins like a cheshire cat. "Having a brain is fun. You should look into getting one."

 

"Yeah, yeah, that's real funny," Dean dismissed. "I've heard better comebacks than that from toddlers."

 

"I'm only matching it to your level of intelligence, Detective Winchester," Castiel replies smoothly. Dean clenches his fist.

 

“I’m more convinced it has to do with matching how impressively you’re doing on the poverty scale.”

 

“Oh, ha ha,” Castiel says dryly, snorting. “A hit at my _situation._ Very original.”

 

"I'm tired of screwing around," Dean says lowly, and Castiel raises a brow, even taking the moment to drop his smile, as if pretending to look more curious than he probably was. "If you don’t answer my questions, I'll charge you with obstruction of justice, and we’ll see how well you can pay off _those_ charges.”

 

Castiel actually _cackles._ Not snickers, or chuckles; _laughs,_ like Dean’s a stand up act he can’t quite get enough of _._ "'Obstruction of justice'," he grins, still chuckling as if the whole situation is one big fucking joke to him (which doesn't even surprise Dean, since that's not even a question in his mind, at this point).

 

"You really are a trickster, Detective Winchester," Castiel snorts, sitting back again. "I've got a brother like you, you know. He’s an asshole too.."

 

"A trickster?" Dean asks flatly, crossing his arms in some semblance of acting not to care, really, when his insides burned with anger. "What does that even _mean?"_

 

"I believe the Constitution," Castiel purrs, sarcasm thick and more than obvious in his voice, "that upholds the qualities of our oh-so- _great, fair,_ and _infallible_ nation--" He grins. "-- states that I am guaranteed the right to remain silent. Therefore, you can't arrest me for not answering your questions." He looks immensely satisfied; Dean hates him. "Nice try, however. I'm sure it works with everyone with an IQ less than, oh, ten or so."

 

"You make up a lot of shit, you know that?"

 

"Au contraire," Castiel smiles. "It's nothing but the truth."

 

"So compulsive lying is your strategy. Lie about your job, and your ‘non-existent drug charges’,” Dean scowls. “Maybe you’re not even a dude.”

 

"Do you _ever_ just shut up?" Castiel asks dryly. "Maybe my idea wouldn't sound so shitty if you'd let me explain."

 

Dean snorts. "Explain that you're a fucking _psycho?_ Trust me, pal, I got the fucking memo. _”_

 

Castiel clears his throat, giving Dean a look, as if he believes the man to be some sort of ignorant _child_. "As I was saying," he insists, "gray areas are the product of the Human Disease, Detective Winchester."

 

"The Human Disease," Dean repeats apathetically, uncaring.

 

"Of course," Castiel smiles. "The Human Disease. The subjective idea that our homosapien virtue is based on a scale of _how_ moral or immoral we are, rather than _if_ we're moral or immoral to begin with."

 

"I'm sorry," Dean laughs coldly, "are you _seriously_ trying to make me believe that _you_ , a _criminal_ and _liar_ , believes in _solid_ rights and wrongs?"

 

"I am."

 

Dean snorts again, and Castiel lifts his chin a little, that annoying, arrogant fucking smile still gracing his lips, the expression small, haughty in a way.

 

"There is no fucking way I'm buying into _that_ shit," Dean rolls his eyes.

 

"Only because you're extremely, if not utterly, unwilling to do so."

 

"It's called being _realistic_ , asshole."

 

"I'm surprised by you, Detective Winchester," Castiel's voice comes, and it grates on Dean like nails on a chalkboard, threatening to make his hackles rise once more. "You're a police officer. I would have expected more of a firm view on morality from someone of your standing and background."

 

Dean narrows his eyes, and the tension in the room shoots up like the temperature on a summer day in Texas. "My _‘background’_?" he repeats lowly, eyes locked on Castiel with total, frustrated concentration. "What does _that_ mean, exactly?"

 

"I'm only referring to your history of a single-parented childhood," Castiel smiles simply. “Perhaps you don’t fully blame the monster of a man that destroyed your home and killed your mother?”

 

And Dean skids to a halt on rocky asphalt, because every thought is busy going to _what the fucking **fuck.**_

 

"Not to mention the additional acts of alcoholism and abuse from your father,” Castiel drawls on, and something more furious in Dean, sleep-deprived and sexually unsated and still four percent wasted, _snaps._ “Though, then again, I'm told you're very pardoning of him."

 

Dean actually knocks his chair over when he stands, and when he's around the table, hands shaking, he yanks Castiel's lithe form up by the front of his five-times hand-me-down shirt like he weighs nothing, enraged, yanking Castiel in such a position that the man's hands are forcibly yanked and stretched against the locked handcuffs, meant to inflict _pain_. Dean _wants_ him to _hurt._

 

"How do you know about me?" he snarls lowly, dangerous, rage thrumming in every bone and every blood vessel. "How do you know my fucking name, and how do you know about my life? Talk, you fucking _son of a bitch!_ Spit it the _fuck_ out!”

 

"Dean!" Sam’s voice barks, as if from a distance, and suddenly his little brother is there and so is Jo, both with warning in their eyes as Castiel’s shine with indifference, flat and so fucking _annoying--_

 

_“Dean,”_ Sam snarls again, and Dean’s head throbs. “Put. Him. _Down.”_

 

_“Sam--”_ Dean hisses, and he hates his brother, too, for a second, for not letting him put his foot so far up Castiel Novak’s ass that he’d be picking toes out of his teeth when Dean booked him in jail, and he _would._

 

_“Now.”_

 

Dean curls his lip in disgust and rage, glaring awfully at Sam, and drops Castiel with force, half throwing him back into his cold metal chair. He can feel Castiel’s contemptuous gaze burning a hole in his head as he stomps out, and he needs to leave, now, before he’s booked for murder himself. He slams the door on the way out.

 

~*~

 

He manages to evade Bobby all the way to the parking lot, but when he _does_ get there, finding Dean pacing angrily by the Impala, he looks ready to suspend Dean on the spot, face filled with irritable fury like the bout still bubbling in the bottom of Dean's gut. Dean knows he needs to bite his tongue, but controlling his impulses has never exactly been a strength of his, and Castiel Novak is something- _fucking_ -else. Dean's never been like this, so wound up and tense and easily broken, and he doesn't want to believe that it's Castiel bitching Novak's fault that he's literally stomping around and cursing, feeling like a firecracker ready to go off. He huffs, not even bothering to turn to Bobby as he man stalks up to him, visibly furious.

 

"What the hell was that?!" the older man demands gruffly, voice raised and radiating fury like he’s the father of a two-year old. "What the fucking _hell_ was that?!"

 

"You fucking heard him in there, Bobby!" Dean snaps, ire rising dangerously high now. "How the hell did he know all that shit about me, huh? What the fuck!"

 

"That's not my fucking problem!" Bobby hisses right back. "You just pulled some of the dumbest shit I've seen in thirty years on this force! You let that fucker get into your head! You let your guard down! How the fuck am I supposed to react to that?!"

 

"He knew my fucking _name_ , Bobby," Dean snarls, angrily thrusting a pointer finger at the man. "He knew about my fucking _dad!_ That’s not something people just fucking _know!_ How the fuck do you _expect_ me to react when that little shit's spouting out stuff like that!"

 

"Professionally, you jackass! Are you some untrained little _shit?_ I called you in to question a suspect, and instead I almost had to put you down for assault charges! If there's nothing to get this guy as an accomplice, then you're gonna be lookin' at some charges that I can't get you out of!"

 

"This is _bull,_ Bobby, this is fucking bull!"

 

"I don't care _what_ it is," Bobby snarls, and Dean snaps his mouth shut. "Your little stunt had better not happen again, or you're off this case before you can fucking blink. I need your fucking help, but I’ll find someone else if I have to. So pull your shit together, _now._ You understand me?"

 

"But--"

 

"Dean _Winchester,”_ Bobby snarls, with conviction, like Dean’s ten again and he’s just found Bobby’s forty-five in the upstairs closet and Bobby’s found him waving the loaded thing around, making way for Dean’s shame to be as bright as his ears.

 

Dean grits his teeth, nearly grinding them together in anger. "Whatever. What- _fucking_ -ever."

 

Bobby huffs, only barely satisfied. "Go fucking cool off. Now. I want you back in this precinct in twenty minutes, and that's an _order_. You understand me?"

 

Dean glares, just as Jo bursts through the building's doors, hurrying down to them, looking ruffled, an offset to the tension in the current conversation.

 

"Bobby," she says frantically, getting his attention. "Bobby, there's-- here," she insists instead, a little breathless as she shoves her pager into Bobby's hands, gaze flickering uncomfortably between them. Bobby's eyes flick over the screen, and he lets out a few colorful curses.

 

"Thirteen more," he grunts irritably, before Dean can ask, and both he and Dean clench fists. He huffs again, even more wound up, and shoves the pager back into Jo's hands. "Get Benny's team out there," he commands her, and she nods, hurrying inside again as Bobby turns to face Dean. "Scratch twenty; you've got three minutes."

 

"I'm ready now," Dean says fiercely, determined, and Bobby scoffs, disbelieving, but doesn't argue, motioning for Dean to go inside. Dean straightens his tie, and pops his knuckles as he climbs the steps back into the building.

 

~*~

 

The first half of Dean’s third interrogation goes just about as well as the first two, and finally Bobby just doesn’t even care to try anymore, right now, half-dragging Dean out of his constant bickering with Cas, the asshole borderline giddy when Dean’s finally gone, and just letting Benny take a whack at it while he tells Dean to go somewhere else and cool his head. Dean makes a show of slamming another door, before stomping outside to throw himself in the backseat of his car, locking the doors and laying his head down on his coat, closing his eyes.

 

Stupid fucking Castiel Novak. Stupid fucking serial murders. Stupid fucking bourbon for not letting him sleep through Sam’s calls, and stupid fucking Aaron Bass for talking all racy and low and inviting before showing that talking was the only thing he knew how to do with his mouth unless he wanted to royally fuck up. Dean kind of wants to shove his finger into his brain and scratch at it until he’s seven years younger, and the only thing he’s worrying about is how fucking fast he can get his badge so he can carry a gun on his belt and turn the sirens on on the police cars and feel more important than anyone’s ever allowed him to feel before.

 

Instead, he’s twenty eight and hungover as hell and his dick has seen more significant morning-afters ( _many_ more, trust him). Right now worthless is an understatement for how grumpy and exhausted he is, and he just wants to sleep for days and days until he can wake up to a perfect, homemade double cheeseburger and some semblance of control. He has the undying urge to go inside and vaction to Gun Testing; he’s pretty sure the most satisfying thing right now, besides going home to his bed and some Ibuprofen, would be to tape pictures of Castiel Novak’s goddamn cocky face over the faces of the mannequins and re-perfect his head shots (not that they’re not the best shit in the precinct already.)

 

But fucking _seriously._ How the _fuck_ did Castiel Novak not only know all his shit that he’s put too much effort into repressing to try and think over right now ( _especially_ right now… or at any time at all, ever), but how the fuck did he expect to get away with spitting out all of Dean’s life story without seeming like he’s suspicious, or at least guilty of something? Dean’s never been into ‘saving’ the homeless prostitutes, or whatever he’s supposed to gather from the five hundred page books in the _Romantic Novel: FBI_ section of Barnes and Noble, and he’s pretty confident in the fact that he would have remembered fucking someone that fucking _annoying,_ prostitute or not.

 

So then what was Castiel Novak’s gain, exactly, in spewing out the abridged version of Dean’s life story? Where was the motive in that, unless he wanted to toe the line until it broke? What exactly would that do, besides end up with Dean laying down a few punches? Castiel Novak seemed to act in a way that suggested that he was aware he was some kind of enigma, and he wanted to make sure everyone else saw him that way too. He wanted outsiders to twist and retwist his Rubik's Cube, keeping them long occupied trying to match the colors, long enough to let himself wiggle and weam his way through the cracks and spaces left open to him. The fact that he could deep-think others into deep-thinking about him had to be some form of proof inception.

 

Dean groans, huffing as he shifts his position, wrinkling his nose when it didn’t make him feel any more comfortable half-squished in the leather bench. He couldn’t help the slight guilt in his gut either, poking at him with one thought: Sam. They’d had their spat earlier, sure, it wasn’t like they never fought, especially in such a stressful job, and Dean hadn’t thought to what Sam was imagining between Castiel’s words and Dean nearly throttling the son of a bitch. Sam had to have been as concerned, if not more, not to mention more deeply invested in figuring out exactly how Castiel knew their history like he’d written it in bullet points on the inside of his arm. Sam had always been better at investigation, after all, and Dean preferred it that way; he had no problem being the hand on the gun, as long as Sam gave him the brain and reason to or not to pull the trigger.

 

As if by some telepathic bullcrap, made only to ruin the peace and quiet Dean had finally managed, Dean hears a knock from the window above his head, and groans as he looks up, glaring slightly at Sam, who’s watching him from outside. bent slightly so Dean can see his head, normally hanging about seven feet from the ground.

 

Dean sighs, reaching out and cracking the window handle until the glass has retracted about halfway. _“What,_ Sam?”

 

“Ellen told me you were out here,” Sam declares, kind of like Dean is really supposed to care. “I’ve been trying to call you for ten minutes.”

 

“Can’t you see that I’m busy, bitch?”

 

“Then stop being busy,” Sam snaps. “Get up, man, we’ve got to head out to Holton.”

 

Dean frowns, scoffing. “Why? Finally find someone willing to cut that mop on your head?”

 

“Because there’s been another mass murder, _asshole._ Come on, we have to go.”

 

Dean sobers up when Sam shows him the text from Jackson County-- _13 dead, and something like what you described before, get here quick--_ and he gets up, slipping out of the backseat and into the driver’s seat as Sam drops into the passenger’s side, checking his GPS for the quickest route north. Dean starts the car, and they pull out of the parking lot and onto the road in grim silence.

 

~*~

 

Meg Masters (also known as Queen Bitch, to those most exclusively known as Winchester comma Dean) is waiting for them when they finally make it to Holton, hair like a pink-streaked beacon in the noon-time sun, raising a hand to catch their attention as they pull in behind her cruiser. The warehouse she and at least five other cars are parked in front of is old and abandoned, and Dean knows he and Sam are making the same connection between the settings as they get out of the Impala, slipping under the line of police tape and heading for Meg.

 

“Took you girls long enough,” Meg drawls, giving them a dry, somewhat amused look as they reach her. “Scratch that: two girls would manage to get here on time, and not look like they just spent the last few days doing back-to-back shifts.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, Meg,” Sam sighs heavily, both brothers in matching stances, hands in their pockets. “Look, we don’t have much time. We have a suspect in custody, and we need to get back.”

 

Meg shrugs, smirking around a gum bubble she blows and pops. “Sure you don’t want to stick around, hot stuff?” she teases, actually getting Sam to smile, just a little, if amusedly so. “I’ll even let Dean in the house if he’s potty-trained."

 

“Can we just get this done?” Dean snaps, still riled under the professionalism he’s trying to keep his composure with. “We need to go.”

 

Meg huffs. “Jeez. Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the dick this morning.”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

“You look like you’ve had enough of that for a night,” Meg smirks, turning toward the warehouse. “Come on. The team from the morgue already got the bodies moved out and back to the station, but we’re still getting everything else cleaned up and written out.”

 

“How much clean up is clean up, exactly?” Sam asks with a grimace.

 

“Come see for yourself.”

 

Meg leads them up the small hill toward the warehouse, sending off a message on her cell phone before leading them inside the place. It’s musty and rickety, no younger than at least a good fifty or sixty years, and it looks like a carbon copy of the inside of the barn that Benny had shown the brothers pictures of after he’d gotten back from the crime scene.

 

Along the far wall is another, miniature version of the Rack.

 

Sam curses, and Dean narrows his eyes. The awful thing is like the travel-sized version of the original, and like its bigger counterpart, it’s stained with blood and other things Dean’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to have identified to him. He groans, he and Sam following Meg over to the thing.

 

“I’m going to guess I was right about what this was?” Meg asks, and Sam nods.

 

“S’the fourth one we’ve found,” Sam huffs. “Besides the big one.”

 

She sighs. “Well, shit.”

 

“Were there any on it when you found it?” Dean demands, and Meg scoffs, not rudely.

 

“All of them,” she mutters. “One still had a knife in his neck. S’all fucking crazy.”

 

“And they had numbers?” Dean persists.

 

“All of ‘em, yeah, on the backs of their hands. Fifty-one through sixty three.”

 

“Yeah,” Sam sighs, in a tired, regretful way, eyes scanning over the Rack. “All right. Dean,” he says, “we gotta get this one back with Adam so he can study it.”

 

“I’ll get Lilith to bring it around,” Meg hums, and narrows her eyes when Dean groans again. “Something picking at you, Winchester?”

 

“Is Lilith the best you can do?” Dean mutters, even though Sam is shooting him a gaze of daggers that says _shut up now._ “She’s worse than you.”

 

“I keep her around because she’s _efficient,”_ Meg drawls coldly. “I feel bad for Bobby Singer for getting stuck with someone who’s not-so-much.”

 

“That’s enough, Dean,” Sam snaps, as he pulls his ringing phone from his pocket. “Would you grow up?”

 

“I think he already missed that one,” Meg smiles, sickeningly sweet, moving away to talk to Lilith’s very blonde person across the warehouse. Sam answers his phone, allowing Dean to sulk for about twenty seconds before he’s snapping at Dean, motioning him hurriedly over, still on the phone.

 

“What?” Dean asks, all seriousness again, but Sam just motions at the exit, already moving swiftly toward it, not bothering to make sure Dean is following (he knows he is; Dean knows when his brother’s business attitude means something crucial).

 

“We’ll be there in half an hour,” Sam says to the person over the phone as he leads them back toward the Impala, nodding distractedly in Meg’s direction when she shouts that she’ll text him when Lilith’s team is bringing the mini-Rack down to Lawrence. “Keep him on hold as long as you can, we’ll be there.” He hangs up, dropping quickly into the Impala, and Dean follows, getting into the driver’s side and starting the car.

 

“What’s going on?” Dean presses, pulling out and getting quickly back on the road.

 

“We need to get back to the station,” Sam says. “They’ve got the murderer on the phone.”

 

“On the phone?” Dean frowns.

 

Sam nods slowly. “And he wants to talk to Novak.”

 

Dean drives fast.

 

~*~

 

Ellen is waiting outside for them when Dean pulls in, parking quickly, both boys throwing open their doors and hurrying to get out and up to her.

 

“Come on,” she insists, already turning and heading inside, leading them down the hall toward the interrogation room. “They had him on hold, but he’s got a hostage. They had to answer.”

 

Sam nods, moving quickly into the monitor room, followed by his brother and Ellen. Benny’s team was shoved in there, along with Jo and Adam, while inside the interrogation room with Castiel were Benny and Bobby, both silent, arms crossed as they watched Castiel, who was talking to who Dean realized was the murderer on the phone that had been moved inside the room. It was on speaker, and except for Castiel and the murderer’s voice, everything was dead silent.

 

_“How’s the force been treating you, Cassie?”_ the voice purrs, and Dean can’t help the shudder that goes through him at the sound. The voice is cool, relaxed, and by the way Castiel is sat up straight, utterly stiff, Dean can tell he’s not the only one that’s uncomfortable. _“Did they give you the special treatment? The penthouse of justice?”_

 

Castiel swallows, fingers twitching on the table, looking a little pale. “Of course,” he says, and whether everyone else knows it or not, Dean hears the tone, feels the vulnerability in the way Castiel speaks back to the man on the phone, his facade of “the enigma” wiped from him. “Only… only the best,” Castiel continues weakly, warily.

 

_“Good, good,”_ the voice hums, as if in approval. _“I’m glad. I wouldn’t want to have to come up there and investigate myself, right?”_

 

“R-right,” Cas says feebly. “That… you… you shouldn’t d-do that.”

 

_“I never liked Meet the Parent conferences anyway,”_ the voice laughs, and Castiel tenses even more. There’s a tremble in his fingers, and Dean, honestly?, almost feels _sorry_ for the bastard. Castiel looks like a scared child, looks like he’s ready to beg to just be somewhere, anywhere else than here. Dean swallows himself, tuning back in.

 

_“I left you a gift, Cassie,”_ the voice murmurs softly, and Castiel freezes. _“It’s not too far away from here. You remember the trip we took up to Holton? We got to see all those historic buildings. You stole that book from the library, and ended up taking it back.”_

 

The voice laughs again, and Castiel squeezes his eyes shut.

 

“I… I r-remember,” Castiel manages, his voice thick and quiet.

 

_“You always were such a responsible kiddo, Cas,”_ the voice says, voice dripping with affection, but Castiel looks like he’s about to vomit. _“It’s such a shame you lost that. I was excited to see you become an English teacher, like you wanted. Maybe once you’re out of the slammer you’ll still have a chance.”_

 

He sighs, not waiting for Castiel’s blanched form to create a fitting response. _“Well, I’ve been in one place too long now, and you know how bad that is for business. Not to mention that I really don’t need the police officers listening in to crack my server. So I’m just going to finish up here--”_

 

“No, no, wait--!” Castiel shouts suddenly, wide eyed, jumping up, but there’s already a girlish scream wailing through the phone, filling the room with the terrified noise. The sound cuts into a gurgle in seconds, and everyone’s staring at the phone receiver in horror as the noise fades away, into dead quiet.

 

 

Castiel is shaking, eyes big as dinner plates, and after a long minute, the voice returns.

 

_“Well, that’s that.”_ The voice laughs softly. _“I’ll see you soon, little brother.”_

 

Click.

 

The tension is thick enough to cut with a knife, and no one moves for a long time, watching the phone as if expecting the man to call back. Finally Bobby curses loudly, making everyone start a little.

 

“Fucking _shit!”_ Bobby snarls, smacking the receiver in fury. “The trace. There isn’t a fucking _trace.”_

 

Ellen hits the talk button on the monitor’s dash. “What do you mean there’s not a trace?” she demands.

 

“What I fucking said!” Bobby snarls angrily. “The fucker blocked us. We have _nothing.”_

 

Ellen purses her lips, and once again they’re all quiet. Inside the interrogation room, Castiel finally sinks slowly back into his seat, eyes distant, face twisted with sickened horror. He’s shaking again, and Dean wants to feel sorry for him, except that now he knows, they _all_ know, exactly who Castiel Novak is.

 

_See you soon, little brother._


	3. Chapter 3

Castiel Novak is silent.

 

He hasn’t spoken since the phone call, and Dean’s not sure how to start talking, not sure how to break the tension that’s settled in the room. As much as an asshole as Castiel was before, and probably still is, Dean’s never wanted that back more than in this moment. He’s never been good with emotion, unfortunately a product of his father’s making, and leaving the “chick-flick” moments to Sam has always been much easier than putting himself through him on his own free will. Especially with drug-dealing brothers of serial killers.

 

Now, however, he really has no choice. Sam and Benny have spent nearly two hours going over and into why the receiver didn’t catch a trace on the phone call, but so far there’s nothing to give them any information as to where the man could be, or what phone the uncomfortable call came from. Blocking information like that from the police, the FBI, even, is more than difficult with an entire team of people, much less one homicidal maniac bent on killing, killing, and, oh, killing some more. Unless, of course, the guy _does_ have a team he’s using to keep himself hidden, but Dean really doesn’t want to imagine what that would entail, so he keeps the thought to himself, though he knows everyone else in the precinct is thinking the same thing.

 

He clears his throat, just a little, awkward and restless, but Castiel doesn’t look up, eyes distant, blues dulled where they’re glued to his hands, resting lifelessly on the cold, metal table. Dean almost feels _sorry_ for the fucker, and that’s a rare thing, especially for him. He’s made it an obligation to keep his pity for those that deserve it, and only those that deserve it, but there’s something about Castiel Novak that makes him feel like he deserves that pity, innocent or not, and Dean’s still not convinced that Castiel really _is_ innocent. The man could be faking the whole thing, honestly, a facade of unhappiness and something like sorrow, or regret, but Dean’s experienced Castiel’s mask, his ability to turn himself into a puzzle, a seemingly unsolvable conundrum. This, this condition of remorse and solitary, subdued silence… it just feels too real. At least, Dean’s gut says so, and after years on the force, he’s learned that his gut is fairly trustworthy, especially in a situation like this one.

 

He clears his throat again, and tries not to be irritated when Castiel’s form doesn’t change, when he doesn’t even look up. He tries to remember that Castiel is, apparently, the brother of a murderer, and therefore probably in some kind of vulnerable position, as Dean has noted over the past hour, from the way Castiel’s cockiness had vanished, not to mention Castiel’s very visual response to the woman’s over-the-phone murder.  During the call, Castiel had seemed terrified. Now? Well, he wasn’t really terrified, at least not on the outside, but Castiel was most definitely on edge. Anxious. Like his brother were about to march right through the interrogation room door with a gun trained on him and a finger on the trigger. It wasn’t like this was shocking to Dean, obviously, but it was harder, now, to believe that Castiel was on his brother’s side with his actions when Dean could see Castiel’s face, could see what was really boiling below the surface.

 

“Castiel,” Dean says finally, breaking the tense silence (though only the silence breaks, really, the tension still thick enough for a knife to get stuck in like a sword in a stone). “Castiel. Hey. You with me, asshole?”

 

The name actually gets Castiel’s attention, and he looks up, looking a little stunned, like he’s not sure why Dean is calling him names. Dean resists the urge to snort.

 

“There, now. That’s better. Why don’t you quit having sex-eyes with your fingers and give me a little attention?”

 

Castiel’s face remains as quiet as his tongue, vacant in expression, except for the shadow behind his eyes, the anxiety and fear a black swirl inside him. Dean tries not to sigh. Tries not to be as sympathetic as he thinks he maybe should be, at least, as sympathetic as he could have been, had he not had a badge gleaming on his chest right now, as he has had for many years.

 

He fiddles with the corner of the paper in front of him, instead. “So,” he says slowly, considering his words.

 

…

 

…

 

…

 

_Fuck it._

 

“He’s your brother,” Dean says simply, and Castiel _winces._ The flinch is barely there, but Dean’s honed in on the action, zoomed in on every wrinkle and ache in Castiel Novak’s face.

 

“I can say that I really wasn’t expecting it,” Dean continues in Castiel’s barren silence. “Thought maybe he was a co-worker. Or you were more of an escort that just happened to sell drugs on the side. Or both.” He shrugs. “Unless this is like an incest thing, which I really hope it’s not.”

 

 

Dean groans. “Okay,” he huffs. “Come on. Where’s the piece of shit that was mouthing off to me at five o’clock in the morning? I know you aren’t that silent, strong, actually innocent type, so bring it. You’re _brooding._ The only person I can stand to let brood is Sam.”

 

Castiel actually grits his teeth, his jaw tensing, and Dean counts it as a victory, a little smug. He allows himself to smirk, leaning back in his chair.

 

“That’s it, huh?” he taunts, poking and prodding Castiel’s annoyance from a dimmed spark into a frustrated fire. “There’s the real you, you sonuva’bitch. Why don’t you spout out some more of your holier-than-thou philosophy crap?”

 

“Will you just leave me the _fuck_ alone?” Castiel snarls, metaphorical hackles rising. “Why do you have to be so damn _annoying?”_

 

“It’s a talent,” Dean grins.

 

“It’s bothersome,” Castiel snaps, fists clenched with white-knuckled force, a dam in him breaking with sudden force unexpected to Dean. “It’s boisterous and ignorant and I would rather tear out my own hair than listen to your stupidity for any longer than a moment. You treat yourself like a king, but you sound like a swine, and I wish you would just put me back in my cell or send me to jail so I don’t have to listen to your grating, intolerable voice any longer than necessary. I’m stressed as it is by being shoved in this room and locked up like a dog on a leash. I’m cold and I’m hungry and I’m dirty and I’m exhausted, and to top it off, I’m being tortured by your unendurable presence when I could have just written down a false statement of drugs that I’ve never had nor sold nor done, and I would be on my way to a jail cell where I could just get some _quiet,_ not to mention reliable safety. I wish I could tear out my own eardrums and sew my damn eyes shut so I could just pretend you don’t exist, but since I’m chained to this fucking desk, I get the _privilege,”_ he snarls sarcastically, bitter and furious, “of being hindered by your very company. You could quite possibly be one of the most haughty, presumptuous, vain, cavalier people I’ve ever met. Your anger is uncontrolled and reckless, and your persistent, callous indifference to my existence as a human being is exasperating. You try to rile me and catch me on some charge that you’ve made up to make all of your puzzle pieces fit, but I. Won’t. _Have it._ I’m not a drug dealer and I’m not a murderer, I’ve never even stolen a god damn book from a library!, and I’m tired of sitting here and waiting for my brother to come and slaughter the lot of you to find me. So I want a fucking lawyer, and I want to go back to my fucking cell so I can _get away from you._ The fucking faster, the fucking _better.”_

 

There’s stunned, utter silence again for a long time. Castiel is red-faced and enraged, breathing hard as Dean stares at him, completely floored by his rapid-fire monologue of hatred. Castiel no longer holds up his masquerade mask of cockiness and contemptuous visionary; there’s only anger and, underneath it, horror. And Dean knows it.

 

He coughs after a minute. “Um.” He considers. “... ditto.”

 

Cas slams the palms of his hands furiously against the metal table, as much as he can with the cuffs still chafing his wrists raw. “Would you just leave me alone?” he snarls.

 

Dean scoffs, crossing his arms. “After that spiel? I wish. But nope. It ain’t in the cards, Kenny.”

 

“And all your stupid, unintelligible references!”

 

“They wouldn’t be unintelligible if you didn’t have a no-TV-or-radio stick stuck up your ass,” Dean persists with a slight sneer. “Are you _completely_ negligent to pop culture?”

 

“I want to go back to my cell, already,” Castiel hisses his demand. “Would you just put me away already?”

 

“We’ve been through this,” Dean huffs. “Don’t be stupid. Not to mention that I don’t take orders from convicts.”

 

“I’m _not_ a fucking convict!” Castiel barks. “I haven’t done anything wrong!”

 

“That I know of.”

 

“There’s literally nothing on my record!” Castiel hits the table again, voice wavering with fury. “You can’t hold me here forever! You can’t hold me here longer than a day! You can’t prove something that doesn’t exist!”

 

“Your brother,” Dean seethes, “is a cold-blooded _killer.”_

 

“Do you think I _want this?_ Do you actually fucking think that I _want_ to be family with that monster?” Castiel exclaims, and his voice breaks in such a way that Dean no longer sees anger in anger; he sees _pain_ in anger, only borne from more pain and anger and pain and anger. “I didn’t ask for this!” Castiel goes on, and his eyes are gray and tired and moist behind the fiery heat of rage. “I didn’t ask to be related to _him!_ To that-that _devil!”_

 

For a third time, he slams his fists down on the table. His head tips forward, eyes screwed closed, and his hands are shaking, rattling against the table, fingernails biting into his palms in a way that looks painful.

 

Dean’s gut drops, and the mocking and taunting and sneering goes away like he’s been washed down with a harsh spray of freezing water. He swallows, and something in his gut twists, like he’s shaken up too. He doesn’t want to believe that, but the sick feeling is like a dead giveaway. It’s foreign, an alien symbiote thriving in his stomach. Something like _caring._

 

“Hey… Cas,” Dean says slowly, and Cas freezes at the nickname. The word comes from Dean’s mouth with an unfamiliar tang and taste, but it’s also… simple. Dean feels like there’s some barrier of intimacy crossed, some layer of Castiel Novak he’s peeled back with just the name alone, and it makes him want to shiver with an emotion he doesn’t know how to name. “Cas, it’s… look, don’t….” He wants to punch himself, a little. Or more than a little. “Don’t… y’know. Cry.”

 

Castiel exhales in a sharp burst, face scrunching up with anger. “I’m _not_ crying,” he hisses, the heat behind it dull, hollow. “Don’t be stupid.”

 

“I’m not. You’re kind of being stupid, though.”

 

Cas opens his eyes to glare at him, cheeks and ears flushing red. “I want to go back to my cell,” he demands, quietly, with muted force, voice cracked below the surface, minute in his attempt to keep his strong veneer.

 

“I know,” Dean says, and his voice isn’t cruel or cold. It’s sincere, and he feels like it, too, like his words are fully genuine. And with a convict, or not-so-much-so; there was a first time for everything, he supposes. “But I can’t put you back. I can’t.”

 

_“Why,”_ Cas insists, and Dean almost believes that the man sounds desperate, just enough so. “Why-why can’t you just-just let me _go?_ I’ve done _nothing.”_

 

“You can’t prove that,” Dean murmurs, the tone of his voice vomit-inducingly gentle. Yet, somehow, it doesn’t feel toxic to have it. “And that guy, this killer… he’s your brother.” He shakes his head slowly. “I can’t act like there’s not a possibility that you’re involved.” He taps his fingers uncomfortably on the metal top of the table. “Even… even if I don’t think you are.”

 

Cas’ head snaps up, and he just looks _shocked._ “You what?” he breathes, eyes huge and blue and stricken with complete confusion. Dean’s so confounded for a second that he drowns in miniature oceans for about five seconds before he realizes that they’re staring at each other and his chest is having tiny heart attacks that he can’t control or understand. He coughs, feeling lost long enough to have another ten awkward seconds before he can swallow, throat parched, clearing his throat again for a completely different reason than before.

 

“Um,” he tries weakly. “I what.”

 

Cas is red again, looking stunned himself, like maybe he’s lost because Dean’s lost (which the reason for that still makes no sense, if Dean can find an explanation at all). “You… don’t think I’m involved?” he said slowly, voice soft in a way that makes Dean’s chest do something so flip-fucking weird again. Dean swallows again, almost wincing at the dryness in his throat.

 

“I… um… no,” Dean says carefully. “No, I… don’t. I don’t think so.”

 

“Why not?” Cas croaks, eyes flitting around nervously, like he’s expecting the whole thing to be an elaborate trick, a taunt to make him feel ever worse.

 

“I… um… I just….” He exhales. “Don’t. I just don’t.”

 

Cas swallows. “I want to go home,” he whispers, and the sound is so strangely desperate. So _human._

 

Dean is quiet for a moment. “You… have a home?” he asks, carefully, almost curiously. The air around them isn’t haughty and vain, nor cold and angry. It’s almost calm. It could almost be civil, even. It’s new, different. Dean thinks it could be better.

 

Cas scoffs, barely, the sound more like a clearing of throat than a sneer, holding no malice. “I mean,” he mumbles, “I, um… it depends.”

 

“Depends? On what?” Dean frowns.

 

“Well, I mean….” Cas’ voice is quiet, and he watches his hands uncomfortably, fingers picking at a broken thumbnail. “Sometimes, I… sometimes I can get a space in the shelter. The Lawrence Group Home, or whatever. If there’s any room open, I try and take it, but….” He shrugs. “I just make sure there’s not someone else who, um, wants it.”

 

Dean blinks at him, stunned by Cas’ words. “You… you wait,” he said slowly, repeating what his ears had heard. “You wait for others-- for them to take the rooms.”

 

Cas flushes a peculiar color of red, like he’s embarrassed. “So?” he mumbles quietly. “S’not a big deal. I can find other places better than most of them.”

 

“How do you mean?”

 

He goes a little more red. He coughs quietly. “Escorting,” he mutters, like the word is dirty enough to deserve a bar of soap shoved in his mouth. Dean nods slowly, giving him a minute before speaking again.

 

“Is that your, um… ‘all-around’ job, then?”

 

“Can we talk about something else?” Cas asks, voice thick, heavier than normal. He’s stopped picking at his nail, hands unnervingly still.

 

Dean nods. “Sure. Uh, sure.” He considers, and then suddenly, carefully gets up.

 

“How about I, uh, I get us some coffee?” he asked, voice gentler than he ever thought it could be. “I’ll get us some coffee and maybe a bagel each, and then we’ll, um… finish talking.”

 

Cas closes his eyes, and says nothing. Dean waits a moment more, before straightening up from where he leans on the table and taking his leave.

 

_What the hell just_ happened?

 

~*~

 

Sam pretty much expresses the same sentiment when he catches up to Dean in the rec room, brows raised as he leans against the counter, eyes on Dean’s more than evasive form as he pours coffee into two plain, paper cups.

 

“That was, ah… interesting,” Sam says casually. Dean wants to glare at him a little.

 

“Dunno what you’re talking about.”

 

“You and, uh, ‘Cas’’ talk.”

 

Dean huffs quietly. “It was just a fuckin’ talk, Sam. S’not like I gave ‘im a teddy bear and we sat around having mushy-gushy talk-about-our-feelings time.”

 

“Since when do you call him _Cas?”_

 

“It was Cas or asshole, and I’ve decided to reserve that one for you.”

 

“Funny. You could call him by his full name.”

 

“Oh yeah, and lose my voice because the whole thing’s so damn long. Gimme a fuckin’ break, Sam, this guy’s going through some shit.”

 

“Why don’t you believe it’s him?” Sam snaps, persisting for answers, “You were convinced four hours ago that it was him. Now this guy’s his _brother_ , even _more_ of a reason to think he could be involved, and you just _don’t_ think it’s him?”

 

Dean grits his teeth irritably. “You know the fucking answer, Sam.”

 

“You think just because he puts on a fucking cry fest--”

 

“Would you lay the fuck off?” Dean spit, glaring coldly at his brother, both with metaphorical hackles risen against each other. The air was tense, something Dean had managed to get over with one person, only to find it with another, more important person.

 

“He’s putting up an act.”

 

“He’s not,” Dean hisses.

 

“And how would _you_ know?” Sam snarls angrily.

 

“Because I fucking _know,_ Sam!” Dean exclaims, riled, pissed for another time that goddamn day. “Why the fuck are you making such a _hassle?”_

 

“Because I’m actually looking at this like a fucking professional!”

 

“‘Professional’,” Dean repeats in a hiss, eyes narrowed at his brother, gut bubbling with fury. “You mean like a fucking _infant.”_

 

“I’m actually looking at the shit in front of my goddamn face,” Sam growls. “Instead of playing fucking goo-goo eyes at some fucking drug dealer.”

 

“Can’t prove he’s a drug dealer, though, can you, Bitch?” Dean hisses, almost mocking. “What the fuck are you even in here to say, Sam? Still can’t fucking figure out how you messed up the tracer?”

 

“I didn’t mess up the fucking tracer!” Sam argues, cheeks nearly red, hot with anger. “That’s not anyone’s fucking fault!”

 

“Except maybe if that piece of shit on the other end couldn’t get past the programing Kevin and _you_ put in,”Dean scoffs, “maybe we’d actually have the asshole.”

 

Sam slams his hand down on the counter; it’s nothing like how Cas had done, in old pain mixed with anger and loss, Rather it was loud, filled with boiling ire, with only displeasure and temper.

 

“You’re such a _dick,”_ Sam spits, practically trembling with rage. “Acting like you have some kind of final-fucking-say, like you know everything about his life just because he gives you his fucking bedroom eyes and you can’t control your own--”

 

“What a fucking hypocrite you are!” Dean snarls. “Coming in here and spitting all this shit about me, when you’re pinning him on murder and drug charges that don’t even exist! What his brother’s out there causing doesn’t have to be his fucking fault just because you want everything over and to fit in your stupid little box!”

 

“That’s not what I’m--!”

 

“That’s exactly what you’re doing!”

 

“I’m telling you what’s in front of your fucking face!” Sam barks. “Because you’ve let him convince you that he’s some kind of innocent! There’s no fucking way!”

 

“You don’t have any fucking idea! Don’t you say what you don’t fucking understand about him!”

 

“Why are you defending him?” Sam snarls. “He spat out our life story like he lived it with us! How the hell do you expect him to explain how he knows all of that?”

 

“I don’t _know,_ Sam! It’s not like he’s gotten a fucking shot to explain anything!”

 

“And whose fault is that?” Sam hisses. “You nearly killed the guy!”

 

“I was pissed,” Dean spat. “So are you, right now! But I’m pulling up my pants and actually being an adult about this! There’s more to this case than we’re seeing!”

 

“Like _what?”_

 

“Maybe if you would stop bitching, I could go and find out!”

 

“Maybe if you’d stop getting off to him and his fucking excuses like they were a skin mag--!”

 

_“That’s_ _enough!”_ barks a voice suddenly from the doorway, and standing there is Adam, looking just as pissed at his half-brothers as they are at each other. He’s probably just kept Dean from landing his foot where the sun doesn’t shine on Sam (which is a lot more of it than on a usual person, since Sam’s a fucking giant), at least, so Adam’s caught them before Bobby did, and probably kept them from getting suspended on the spot. Adam huffs, all bitchface as he glares at them, small yet powerful.

 

“Are you _done?”_ he snaps viciously.

 

“Hey, _he_ fuckin’ started it,” Dean mutters, ignoring Sam’s murderous glare.

 

“You think I give a shit?” Adam says coldly. “I’m here on actual business.”

 

“What does _that_ even mean, kid?”

 

“I’m not a kid,” Adam scoffs. “And I’m here because Bobby sent me for you.”

 

“Why?” Sam asks instantly, straightening up, giving their brother complete attention. “Has there been another call?”

 

Adam shakes his head. “Better,” he says dryly. “Novak’s brother is in the building. His _other_ brother.”

 

~*~

 

Gabriel Novak is sort of an asshole, but he’s also kind of stupid (and by ‘kind of’, Dean means _intensely,_ oh my _god)._ Dean’s almost completely sure Gabriel Novak hasn’t killed anything in recent time, especially not a human being. A host of them is almost infinitely unlikely. Dean could probably attest that the man hasn’t even killed so much as a grumpy wasp, bent on revenge at the shooing swish of a hand.

 

Right now he’s in the interrogation room with Cas, and for all the similarities in their faces and mannerisms, they look so utterly different. Cas’ clothes, dirty and too small and obviously dug out of a Goodwill bin, are a big contrast to the clean, well-fitting ones Gabriel is wearing, his face and body clean, his hair not dank or matted with the hardships of living on the street, in a group home. Dean kind of wants to know why Gabriel looks taken care of, while his younger brother is living like a dog. In fact, he _really_ wants to know, wants to see if Gabriel actually has the nerve to say he’s totally aware that he’s living in middle class decadence while his brother rots in sewers and back alleys and the beds of the customers that he’s never even gotten the names of, just a wad of cash and a night of touches without feeling.

 

Sam clears his throat, nudging Dean back to attention, having noted Dean’s spaced out demeanor. Neither of them are happy with the other, still, but they’re both too curious of this new Novak brother to risk fighting further and being thrown off the case. Dean blinks, straightening up, focusing fully on the monitor room’s one-way window, coming to with full attention as Benny and Bobby sit down before the Novak brothers, very serious.

 

“So,” Bobby starts after a minute, eyes on Gabriel’s nonchalant presence, the older Novak’s poise casual, almost uncaring. “You’re Gabriel Novak?”

 

The man chews on something in the left side of his mouth, and blows a bubble from his chewing gum, popping it and maneuvering it back between his lips to chew on again. Cas is giving his brother a disgusted look, one mixed with warning and frustration. “Sure am,” Gabriel smiles easily, seeming unconcerned with the whole thing. It reminds Dean of Castiel when they first met, just a half day ago, except Gabriel’s asshole-ish disposition is one of blase composure, while Castiel’s had reflected, simply, his tendency to be a dick in situations he couldn’t control, his weakness revealed to be, satirically, the very human need to have that control.

 

“Age thirty-one? Livin’ in Springfield, Ohio since two-thousand eight?”

 

“Mhm.”

 

Bobby looks irritably unimpressed; Gabriel’s still got that stupid smile on his face, like he believes he’s a little above the rest of the people around him.

 

“I don’t got time for basics,” Bobby continues coolly, motioning at Benny, who’s already prepared with a notepad and pen, eyes emotionless and fixated on the older Novak’s face. “I got questions, and I want answers for those questions. Now.”

 

“Sure,” Gabriel complies. He pops his gum again, and Cas clenches his fists tightly, visibly aggravated at his brother’s uncaring personality. “Long as Cassie here gets out once I’m finished.”

 

“If he’s innocent,” Bobby snaps. “Which you better be able to prove.”

 

Gabriel grins with mirth that’s frustrating. “I always love a good challenge.”

 

Bobby glares at him, fingers locked tightly together where they lay on the metal surface of the table. “You been aware about the murders goin’ on for the past two months?”

 

“I do catch the news every now and then.”

 

“You tellin’ me the news is where you hear this stuff?” Bobby asks flatly.

 

Gabriel laughs a little. “Where else, Mister Singer?”

 

“How about your killin’ snake of a brother?” Bobby asks flatly, and Gabriel doesn’t even hesitate, snorting at Bobby’s words.

 

“He’s not very easily reached, Mister Singer. Can I call you Rob? Robert? Or is it Bobby? Maybe B-O-B-B-I-E?”

 

“Fuck no,” Bobby retaliates coldly. “He called here three hours ago and the tracer picked up nothing.”

 

“Not surprising,” Gabriel hums. “He’s too smart to be caught by something like that.” He smirks. “He probably thinks it’s sexy and mysterious and shit.”

 

“I want a name. I want a location. I want a _reason.”_

 

“If I had a location, I would have called all anon-style,” Gabriel huffs a somewhat condescending laugh, making a peculiar motion with his hands, using them to support his words. “He knows how to keep himself hidden. I don’t know where he is. If I did, trust me, I would have called much earlier.”

 

“Why.”

 

Gabriel rolls his eyes. “People are _dead,_ Mister Singer, I’m pretty sure this is classified as more than a--” He makes quotation fingers as he pops his gum again. “‘Lone wolf’ case.”

 

“I want a name,” Bobby says again firmly. “I want to know who this fucker is.”

 

“His name’s Lucifer,” Gabriel drawls, and his smile is just a little forced under the playful sarcasm he’s kept Bobby and Benny on the edge of their seats with this whole time. “Trust me: it’s not a pseudonym, and it’s not really a coincidence that he’s named after the devil, either. Destiny, and all.”

 

Bobby snorts. “You some kinda’ Jesus freak?”

 

“Not a chance,” Gabriel laughs easily. “I just think there are people in this world that play their roles the way they’re supposed to, some more obviously than others. Less of the fate shtick, more like an obligation thing.”

 

“Sounds the same to me.”

 

“You’re a cop,” Gabriel smiles. “You have to be very black and white about everything.”

 

“Why do I have to be?” Bobby asks coldly.

 

“Its a part of the job, Bob.”

 

“Don’t start shit with me, you got that?” Bobby snaps. “I’m tryin’ to find this fucker. Don’t gimme a reason to think you’re an accomplice.”

 

“You think everyone’s an accomplice, don’t you?”

 

“It’s in the fuckin’ job description. I ain’t done with my questions.”

 

“Fine,” Gabriel grins. “That doesn’t mean Cassie isn’t innocent.”

 

“How would you know?”

 

“First, because Lucifer likes to work alone,” Gabriel ticks off on his fingers. “Two, because Cassie can’t even steal a pack of gum, much less kill anyone. If he were gonna kill someone, you think he’d be living on the street?”

 

“Why is he living on the street, exactly?” Bobby says flatly, eyes narrowed. “You don’t seem to have that problem.”

 

“I haven’t seen him for the better part of two years,” Gabriel smirks dryly, the expression bitter. “Talking to him on the phone isn’t really enough to get a trace on someone, as I’m sure you’ve all figured out by now.”

 

“So he could be in league with your shit of a brother,” Bobby snaps, twitching with anger at Gabriel’s comment. “For all you know, he’s a distraction to us.”

 

“Oh, he’s a distraction,” Gabriel smiles sweetly at Cas, seeming unaffected by the murder (no pun nor accusation intended) in his brother’s eyes. “But only because you all think he’s worth interrogating. Cassie’s an asshole, but there’s no way he’s working with Lucifer. That’s all.”

 

Gabriel’s eyes glance to the clock on the wall. “How long have you kept him here, again? Twelve, thirteen hours? So it’s not like you can keep him here much longer anyway. His record’s clean; you’ll have to let him go, and you should. He’s innocent. I don’t have to testify in front of some shit-faced judge to know.”

 

“Tell me why Lucifer’s killin’ these people,” Bobby hisses, ignoring Gabriel’s calmness about this whole ordeal. “I want a fuckin’ answer.”

 

“Because Lucifer’s _crazy,”_ Gabriel says dryly, simply. “Because in his messed up little brain, he believes that if he kills enough people, he’ll reach some kind of fucked up Nirvana.”

 

“How would you know, if you’re so fucking innocent?”

 

“Because,” Gabriel hums, “it’s all he ever talked about, Chief. He was obsessed long before he ever figured out how to kill, and run, and hide. I haven’t seen Lucifer in years,” he says, smile grim. “Only his handiwork.”

 

“How many people?” Bobby demands.

 

“Dunno. S’not like I’m involved, Singer. Just an observer.”

 

He sits back, lacing his own fingers in a casual mock of Bobby’s tenser form. Bobby glares at him, and for a minute there’s silence. No one seems sure what to think.

 

“Is there anything else you need, officers?” Gabriel asks. “Honestly, I’d have called in a lawyer for Cassie here if he was up for it, but he isn’t. So I’ll be the one to say that neither of us have to answer anything else, and there’s no point in keeping him here any longer because he hasn’t done anything wrong. And he won’t do anything wrong. So I’d appreciate it if you’d uncuff him, and let us go.”

 

~*~

 

They do, and Dean is completely stunned.

 

Gabriel is adamant about not answering questions after that, and finally, somehow, he manages to poke and prod Bobby and Benny into releasing Castiel, on condition that he would, in fact, answer a few more questions as best he could, and provide the police with a number for himself and Castiel that could be reached should the police need them again (without having to arrest Castiel again to get his attention). There really isn’t a point, nor a legally binding right to keep Castiel there, anyway, since there’s no evidence now of accomplice nor drug dealing. It’s only a matter of using the information they now have to, hopefully, track down Lucifer before he kills anyone else. Gabriel’s words hold truth; Castiel has become a distraction, and that is something they must let go of to return to the real problem at hand.

 

Dean’s there when they lead Castiel from the interrogation room, and the blue-eyed man stops, watching Dean back as Gabriel follows Benny and Bobby, still blabbering on carelessly as they take him to fill out all the proper paperwork. He and Dean are quiet a moment, before Dean flushes and clears his throat, slightly uncomfortable.

 

“Well,” he says, and he thinks his ears might be red. “You got out, all right.”

 

Castiel nods, eyes flickering away. “I did,” he murmurs. “It’s… unexpected.”

 

“You seemed sure you would.”

 

“I’m a good liar, I guess,” Castiel sighs. He seems different when he’s not in a modern-day version of a cowboy standoff, seems more nervous and twitchy when he’s not holding his own against Dean, words back and forth across the table like bullets from two guns across a long stretch of land, both gunman hit and still pressing on to outdo the other.

 

Dean snorts. “You’re kind of an asshole, y’know.”

 

“I’m fully aware of that.” Cas’ eyes flit back to Dean, a little more determined at the challenge Dean has presented. “You’re an asshole, too.”

 

“It’s all part of my charm.”

 

“I wouldn’t call it that.”

 

Dean snorts. “What would you call it, then, exactly?”

 

“A part of your irritating personality.”

 

_“Rude.”_

 

It’s Cas’ turn to snort, and it almost sounds like a laugh. _“Realistic.”_

 

“I gotta be irritating,” Dean insists. “It’s a part of my job.”

 

“To frustrate your captives into wanting to kill you?”

 

“Mhm,” Dean hums. “It almost always makes them talk, unless they’re a wise-ass like you.”

 

Castiel smirks, barely, and where in it Dean expects mocking, there is amusement of a different kind. “”A good poker face is one of my many talents.”

 

“Many talents,” Dean scoffs, grinning just a little. “Like, what, two things? Three?”

 

“At least six,” Cas insists, and Dean actually, really thinks he’s joking now, a little smile on his lips.

 

It’s strange, how light-hearted this feels, when just hours ago they were practically fist-fighting, absolutely furious with each other. Dean wonders if, maybe, they hadn’t met in this type of situation, they could have started off much better than they had, maybe with a drink, or something ridiculous, like Castiel buying the last muffin at the deli that Dean wanted on a crappy morning. Something that didn’t involve anger, or violence, or murder (especially murder).

 

The thought of the, well, domesticity of it gives him a little warmth in his chest he doesn’t know what to do with, so he ignores it, smirking down at the man.

 

“Six? Wow. That’s almost impressive.”

 

“I’m working on my juggling,” Castiel says dryly, though there’s an easiness in his face, in his tone. “That’ll make seven.”

 

Dean hums. “You lose a point for being exceptionally _lame.”_

 

“Juggling isn’t _lame.”_

 

“Of course it is, everybody knows that. Only clowns and weirdos juggle.”

 

“Then you should be exceptionally good at the technique, shouldn’t you?”

 

Dean can’t help it; he flat out grins. “You’re a little shit.”

 

“So you’ve made clear,” Cas grins right back. “That’s my third best talent.”

 

“Third best, huh?”

 

“Mhm. Next to whistling and pick-pocketing.”

 

“Whistling,” Dean asks, brows rising, not even concerned with the second one. The face Castiel makes is smug.

 

“It helps my performance.”

 

Dean coughs, and he thinks his ears might have gone red again. He’s never admitted to being a little more flustered outside of the interrogation room, but… well. “Right.”

 

Castiel snickers. “It’s a _joke,_ Detective Winchester.”

 

Dean blinks. “Right,” he says again, thinking hurriedly. “I… uh. Wait.”

 

Castiel raises his brows. “Wait? For what?”

 

“I, um… have a question?” Dean says.

 

“I think you just asked one.”

 

“No, no, I meant, uh, a real one,” Dean persists quickly, partially embarrassed. “A serious one.”

 

Castiel quirks one brow.

 

“How did you know my name?”

 

“Sorry?”

 

“I never told you my name,” Dean explains. “When I interrogated. You knew my name, but I never said it. How?”

 

There’s not even time for Castiel to look more than surprised; Dean’s phone dings with Bobby’s text tone, and he digs it out, reading the message quickly, eyes narrowing.

 

“Shit,” he hisses, looking up at Castiel with a grimace. “It’s your brother.”

 

“Gabriel?”

 

Dean’s eyes say enough.

 

~*~

 

Dean takes a very pale Castiel immediately to Bobby’s office, where Gabriel’s sitting in a chair outside the room, and inside Bobby, Benny, Sam, and Ellen are standing around Bobby’s landline phone, faces cold, the phone’s _HOLD_ light flashing orange on the monitor. Dean leads Castiel in, motioning for the man to sit in the chair before Bobby’s desk. Castiel does so, looking anxiously at the phone.

 

“We’ll hit the button,” Bobby says flatly, handing the phone over. Castiel doesn’t take it immediately, only reaching shakily for it when Benny clears his throat. Castiel stares at the phone a moment longer before swallowing and putting it to his ear, hand nearly trembling. Bobby hits the button, and the orange button stops flashing. He motions to everyone else to be silent (already done), and hits the speaker button on the phone, the voice of the murderer filtering into the room.

 

_“Hey, little brother,”_ the voice ( _Lucifer,_ Gabriel had called him) on the phone purrs. _“Long time, no talk. Or short time, I suppose.”_

 

Castiel moves his mouth, but the only thing that comes out, after a minute, is a dry cough.

 

_“Cat got your tongue, there? You always were a little shy, but I’ve heard that you’ve grown out of that, now. I’ve even heard that you’re an asshole, just like your brothers.”_

 

“I guess,” Cas manages. His voice is weak, and Dean thinks he can almost hear the fear coloring it, like dye spreading through white muslin, staining his once easy tone with desperation and panic.

_  
“I’m glad to see there’s a bit of the family business in you, Cassie.”_

 

Castiel shudders, and this time his hand really is shaking. His face is twisted, somewhere between actual fear, and trying to keep that poker face that he was telling Dean about. (Apparently, it’s less of a talent when he’s completely terrified.)

 

_“The police captain is really nice, you know. We had a bit of a conversation before he got you for me, which I really do appreciate. He was telling me all about how they let you go. Gabriel’s there too, isn’t he?”_

 

“Y-yeah.”

 

_“Super. I haven’t seen him since he abandoned us for that bitch he called his girlfriend,”_ the voice goes on, still uncomfortably bright, the insult coming from his mouth with ease, without anger or bitterness, though that’s probably hidden somewhere in the layers of his voice. _“What was her name? Kali? Katie?”_ The voice scoffs a little. _“Doesn’t matter. I never liked her anyway. She was almost as crazy as me.”_

 

Castiel’s brother laughs, cold and brutal, and Castiel shivers, hands shaking badly. Dean feels genuine pity, wants to extend a hand or hug to the boy, some form of comfort, even though the idea of providing it is so foreign to his nature. Somehow, though, it feels right.

 

_“I think I’ll get to the reason I called, hm?”_ Lucifer’s voice asks, and Dean can hear rather than see the smile on the lips that the words come from. _“I have some great news, after all, and I wanted to let you know a bit in advance.”_

 

“N-news?” Cas whispers weakly, looking nervously at nothing, stare blank on the far wall.

 

_“Mhm. It involves you, after all.”_

 

Sam gives Dean a look, like he’s saying _I fucking told you he was a liar,_ but there’s nothing Dean can work out or think before Lucifer is going on, and Cas is going a little bit whiter in complexion.

 

_“I wanted to let you know about the details of the vacation I’m taking you on,”_ Lucifer’s voice says casually. _“I know you don’t like surprises, after all.”_

 

Cas lets out a breath that’s wheezy, pitched much higher than normal. Bobby and Benny are staring at the phone, and Ellen’s tapping at the tracer, looking furious that it’s _still not working._

 

_“Oh, come now, don’t cry, baby brother. You know I love to spoil you,”_ Lucifer cooes; Dean thinks Cas might actually do it, or at least vomit into the nearby trash can. _“I’ve already hired someone to come and get you. Alas, I’m a little, well…_ busy, _at the moment. But don’t worry, I have you completely covered. He’s the safest driver I know. Not that that says much, anyway.”_

 

“T-taking me where?” Cas breathes, voice just as pitchy as his shaking breath.

 

_“To my studio, Castiel. I wanted to show it off to you now that it’s all done up.”_

 

This time, tears really do drip down Cas’ face. Dean wants to wipe them away, strangely, but something writhing in his gut is keeping him frozen, making him listen to the voice, the real threat below the calm in Lucifer’s tone, now heightened to new standards. Dean, without reason, feels just as horrified. He thinks he’s about to know why.

 

_“I have all my news toys to play with,”_ Lucifer says, and he’s _giggling. “I just need a new pallet. And you, my dear brother, still owe me a long-overdue birthday present.”_

 

Cas drops the phone.

 

_“I believe this…_ arrangement _will make up for it, hm?”_ Lucifer laughs. _“See you tonight, Cassie.”_ The line goes dead, and everything is silent.

 

Castiel grabs at his hair, clutching it in shaking fists, his form trembling, face ducked. Ellen curses, smacking the tracer with the palm of her hand; no one has to ask her if she got the trace or not.

 

“Does that mean what it fucking sounds like?” Bobby demands, but Castiel is silent, clutching so tightly at his own hair that he could tear it out, if he wanted.

 

Instead, Gabriel’s voice comes from the door, where he’s now standing, face shadowy and serious, for the first time. Just the sight thickens the tension already sweltering in the room like a Texas sun.

 

“Oh, it means what it sounds like,” Gabriel says lowly, hand clutching tightly at the door frame.

 

“You can’t be serious,” Dean insists, finally finding his voice, though the words lack any conviction, and, rather, are threaded with horror.

 

“Serious enough to know what Lucifer’s going to do if he finds Cas,” Gabriel hisses. “And then he’ll be involved with Lucifer, alright. But he’s not going to be an accomplice.” His eyes are dark where they watch Castiel’s shaking form. “He’ll be another victim.”

 

Castiel Novak sobs. Dean’s gut twists, and he swallows, anger building up suddenly, faster than horror.

 

“Then we won’t let him find Cas,” he insists fiercely, all eyes on him. He turns to Bobby, eyeing Cas’ shaking form in his peripheral vision. “We need a safe house, Bobby.”

 

Dean’s in for a surprise.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean’s house is one story, and a decent size for a single occupant (not counting the momentary residents Dean had lead in and out of his bed in past years). It’s made of off-white brickwork, on the outside, and the doors are white, smudged in places with light sheens of dirt where Dean had never bothered to clean after three or four years in the place. The house’ front windows are coordinated in organized, symmetrical rectangles, each paned with about twelve small sections of slightly foggy glass, but the view of the inside is covered from within the house by long, dark green curtains, hiding whatever lies within.

 

Castiel Novak wonders if that’s something that, perhaps, represents a knack for laziness in Dean’s identity, or if it speaks instead for Dean’s years in the force, speaks for some kind of anxiety, some kind of watchful gesture, looking out for himself. Castiel can imagine, after all, that Dean’s been in situations before where he’s been unsafe doing his job; maybe the curtains hide what feels secure to Dean, keeps his home from ending up wrapped in police tape and swarming with other police looking for _his_ murderer, family or friends of those Dean had slammed cell bars on, angry that he was the reason that they had to see their husbands and wives and children and siblings and friends through glass windows with landlines pressed to their ears to hear them. Maybe curtains mean safety.

 

Cas blinks, and shakes his head at his own brain as the police car he’s back-seated in parks on the sidewalk in front of the house. He feels a little silly, trying, it seems, to psychoanalyze someone he doesn’t really know, going on a limb with his own assumptions, considering the closest thing to police work he’s ever _really_ seen is on some sort of procedural cop show, the ones he’d manage to catch after finishing a “job”, probably laid out in bed while his customer washed their hands of the whore they’d chosen, whether testing their own sexualities, or perhaps seeing how many prostitutes they could go through without their significant others finding out. Castiel never really cared, after all, what the motive was; as long as he got a bed and pay and food for the night, he could stand the awkward morning-afters, and allow himself to enjoy the crappy cable before being ushered out of his temporary sanctuary.

 

Captain LaFitte gets out of the car, and comes around to let Castiel out of the criminal-proofed back seat while Dean’s brother, the secondary Detective Winchester, gets out of the car’s passenger seat, tugging his suit jacket straight as Cas climbs out of the car, zipping up his own ratty jacket at the cold breeze that hits him the minute he’s out of the car’s warm atmosphere. He shivers, and, after LaFitte closes the back door on the cruiser, follows the two obediently up toward the house, where Dean and a group of officers are already waiting inside.

 

The living room Castiel steps through the front door into is fairly sized, and slightly claustrophobic with the curtains closed, the evening sunset blocked off from shining its orange and pink-tinted light inside. The floor is carpeted, colored a light tint of beige, past the polished, wood-floored hallway, and it covers the whole of the living room floor, stopping at the wall bordering the room to the kitchen, where it turns to grayish tiles, instead. The couch, loveseat, and chair are of a matching, pre-used quality, colored brown and made of velvety microfiber that looks well-worn, but still smooth and comfortable. The coffee table is a sheet of glass set in a wooden frame, smudged like the windows, not properly cleaned, and set over a large green shag that matches the odd selection of olive and emerald-colored pillows Dean has accenting the furniture. The television is set just right on it’s stand so that it can be seen from almost any angle in the room, and it’s probably the cleanest piece of, well, _anything_ that Dean owns within this room.

 

The coffee table and television stand are devoid of pretty much anything else, except for two framed pictures set on the table, both looking at least a decade or two old, creased in places where they’d been folded or gently torn, perhaps kept together with a strip of tape on the back. The one on the left shows a small boy with long hair, and a pretty, blonde-haired woman with her arms wrapped around his neck from behind, her chin hooked on his shoulder as they smile at the camera. The other is the two of them, again, this time beside each other in front of what Castiel can just make out as the side of a big, white house, and the trees beside it. In between them, held adoringly in the woman’s arms, is a newborn, eyes open and watching the camera without understanding, it’s forehead pressed gently against his mother’s cheek, her hand cradling the back of his head. The colors of the pictures are skewed, faded into neutral tones from years of life, but the worn hues haven’t dimmed the nostalgia that seems to emanate from the photos.

 

Castiel blinks out of his reverie when Dean’s brother nudges him into the living room, motioning for him to take a seat in an empty chair that appears to have been drug in from the dining room to allow everyone shoved in Dean’s house a place to sit. Cas takes it, shifting nervously as he watches Detective Winchester and Captain LaFitte join Dean and the team of cops sat in a circle around the coffee table, where they’re all discussing something that Cas would find too anxious to listen in to. His gut is already an uncomfortable mix of heavy and twisted, and his hands tremble again every time he thinks about the phone call from Lucifer, only a couple of hours previous.

 

He looks around the room, tuning out what the officers are discussing in low tones. He looks up, squinting at the yellow light hanging from the ceiling, the fan whirring, keeping the room filled with warm bodies at a decent temperature. He lowers his gaze once he thinks he’s burned a few black spots into his vision, blinking more rapidly as he looks around, examining what else of the house he can see. It’s not much, but he can see the kitchen, at least, as well as a portion of the hallway that leads to the back rooms, mostly likely to Dean’s bedroom and bathroom, maybe a closet or two. He can see the laundry room door through the open entrance to the kitchen, and his brain calculates, from his earlier glance of the outside of the house, that the next door, standing to the right of the washer and drier, must make the way to Dean’s garage. The kitchen is furnished casually, with customary counters, fridge, oven, dishwasher, and microwave. The stove is more interesting, a gas fire stove that looks freakishly clean. Apparently whatever cleanliness didn’t go into keeping Dean’s windows or coffee tables clean went into making sure the kitchen was spotless, in opposition.

 

Someone coughs, expectantly, and Cas blinks, looking around, flushing when he sees all eyes on him, expectant. He goes a little more red, since he’s apparently missed something. “Um.”

 

One of the officers, lean and tall with a brunette mullet, grins, snorting out a snicker that makes Cas wonder if he’s a little drunk, under the easy-going exterior. “He ain’t listenin’, boss,” he smirks at a tense Captain LaFitte. “S’prolly because you’re all so fuckin’ jittery.”

 

“Oh _gosh_ , Ash,” the petite woman with short, bright red hair drawls. “Can’t imagine being jittery with a _murderer_ on the loose, in our area, looking for this one.” She points to Cas with a thumb, teeth smacking in her mouth as she chews on a wad of gum.

 

“Come on, you two,” Dean snaps. “Pull it together, we’re on a schedule.” He looks up seriously to Cas’ reddened face. “I was asking,” he repeats, “if you have any more siblings we need to worry about. We have another team with your brother, but if there’s anyone else, we should know.”

 

Cas swallowed. “Um… well….”

 

They all stare at him, waiting.

 

He coughs. “I… I have… eleven other siblings.”

 

They stare at him. After a minute, an officer with dark skin and a toothpick between his teeth takes the pick from his mouth to whistle.

 

“Damn,” he comments. “S’quite a family you got there.”

 

“Uh. Yeah,” Cas says weakly, rubbing at his scarlet cheeks.

 

“Somebody’s Mom and Pop were busy birdies,” Mullet-Man snorts, and Red-Head hits him firmly in the side with her elbow, glaring warningly at him.

 

_“Anyway,”_ Chief Singer hisses, looking angrily disapproving, a glare of his own trained on all of them except Castiel. It doesn’t stop Cas from feeling uncomfortable when Singer turns a less irritable, but still serious look on him. “How many’a these siblin’s live around here?” he persists.

 

Cas shakes his head weakly. “None,” he murmurs. “They all have their own lives. They got out of Kansas as fast as they could when they got old enough. Even Gabriel’s just a state over.”

 

“Well, they’re smart, at least,” Toothpick mutters, flicking said item into the trashcan nearby. “Least we don’t gotta worry about this fucker goin’ after one of them instead. We’d probably never catch him.”

 

“Well, we’re going to,” Dean insists firmly, looking to the Chief. “How are we splitting up?”

 

“These knuckleheads’re all stayin’ here,” Singer says, motioning at the team of officers. “M’leavin’ three cars with’em, and they’re gonna keep watch outside the house on all sides.” He jerked a thumb at Captain LaFitte and the youngest of the Detective Winchesters. “Benny’ll be over with the other Novak, and Sam’ll be here with the team. Ellen’n me are holdin’ down the fort at the station. We already got the backup team called in. There’s another team stationed at the warehouse, and Meg’s got a team at the place they found. Everybody’s armed and ready.”

 

Dean nods seriously. “Cameras?”

 

“Can’t take the risk. Lucifer already fucked with the tracer from a distance, so it’s beyond me what he could do given a short range. We’re leavin’ electronics alone. Make sure you disconnect all the phones ‘cept your own. We’re gonna do hour updates, every hour, and only on a cell phone,” the Chief persists. “So don’t fall asleep, moron.”

 

Dean snorts. “Whatever,” he mutters, the comments thrown at each other without any malice.

 

The Chief sighs, checking his watch. “Last team’s with the other Novak,” he groans, standing, Captain LaFitte doing the same. Singer turns his eyes to the team, motioning at them firmly. “I want you all out there, now. Same for you all: hourly updates, and don’t fuckin’ fall asleep. We can’t afford a fuck up.”

 

They nod, serious now, themselves. Cas tunes out a little, now, heart beating hard and uncomfortable in his chest as he lets himself space into his own world, eyes barely registering the group’s conversation trailing on a little longer before ending, and the majority of them taking their leave from Dean’s home. He only blinks when he hears the door shut, and he’s left alone with Dean Winchester, who looks just as antsy and nervous as Cas feels.

 

The silence between them is awkward for a minute or two before Dean sighs, and finally catches Cas’ eyes, green locking on blue. Cas notices, for the first time, that Dean isn’t wearing his police uniform, but rather an old, gray Henley, and some jeans that are faded from too many washes, but too loved to be let go of. Cas thinks his ears are pink, again, but he’s not sure why.

 

He leans in favor of ignoring it, and snaps back into the real world as Dean inhales, opening his mouth to speak.

 

“So,” Dean says, slowly. “Um.” He pauses, and the momentary silence is, somehow, less unpleasant than before. “I… guess it’s just us,” Dean goes on. He seems careful; this surprises Castiel, somehow, and it takes a moment to make him remember that responding is a good idea.

 

“Yeah,” he says lamely.

 

Dean swallows, and, before more discomfort ensues, stands, rubbing his slightly sweaty palms on the thighs of his jeans. “How does dinner sound?”

 

Cas isn’t hungry, not really. He agrees anyway.

 

(Maybe it’s to stave off the fear. But he’s not sure why. Not really.)

 

~*~

 

Dean makes sure all the windows and doors are closed and sealed tight before inviting Castiel to home himself in his living room, motioning for Cas to take a seat on the comfortable couch as he grabs the remote, flicking on the television.

 

“I’ve got most of the channels,” he tells the other man, handing the remote off to him so Cas can pick what he wants to watch. “Cartoons, talk shows….” He waves a hand. “Whatever.”

 

Cas nods. “Thank you,” he says softly, and Dean can read the lines of tension and nerves in Cas’ words and body, and he pities him again.

 

“Sure thing,” he says poorly, since he’s never been good with emotions, and his license to have any chick flick moments was never granted to him by the universe. “I’ll be in the kitchen, if you need anything.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Okay,” Dean repeats, resisting a sigh. He lingers a moment, uncomfortably, before moving into the kitchen to cook dinner. “Burgers okay?” he calls gently.

 

“Yeah. Please.”

 

“Alright-y, then,” Dean hums, feeling a little bit braver, somehow, knowing he was on the right track. “One of my best dishes. You’ll appreciate this one.”

 

Cas makes a quiet, distracted noise, eyes on the television. Dean notes that Cas hasn’t changed the channel, and wonders if the man really just likes _Say Yes to the Dress_ , or whether, and Dean thinks he’s probably right about this, Cas is just too lost in his own brain to really think about what he’s watching. Too mixed up in his own anxious, uneasy thoughts.

 

Dean sighs, getting out the meat and cheese in his refrigerator, smelling the former to make sure it’s still good. Affirmed that it’s, indeed, not aged to the point of causing salmonella, Dean grabs the burger buns from the pantry. and grabs a skillet from a lower cabinet, spraying it down before setting it on the stove and turning on the heat. He stays at an angle where he can still see Cas through the decorative, window-like opening in the kitchen wall, watching the man through his peripheral vision as he forms the burger patties and puts them in the pan to cook. Cas still hasn’t done anything more than stare without focus at the women trying on wedding dresses, so Dean sighs again, and turns his gaze more fully to his cooking.

 

They coexist in silence for a while, allowing Dean to season and cook the burger patties without distraction. He doesn’t think too much about the current predicament, choosing, rather, to focus his mind on the burgers he’s cooking. It’s easier, that way, to try and imagine that, instead of protecting Castiel’s life, he’s just an off-duty officer making burgers for himself and his friend. Friend being an objective term (right?).

 

He doesn’t realize Cas is standing in the doorway until his phone buzzes from the counter, and he looks up at the noise, blinking in surprise at the man standing in the kitchen doorway. Cas’ eyes, blue and ocean-deep, are on him, and, somehow, he almost feels… small under them. The sensation is gone quickly, but it doesn’t take away the chill it leaves in his chest.

 

Castiel blinks at him, and frowns. “Dean?” he says slowly, and Dean blinks back to reality.

 

“Um. Yeah?”

 

“Your, uh… your phone.”

 

Dean reddens, face burning. “Oh. Yeah. Right,” he stammers, turning the heat down on the cooking patties before scooping up his phone, answering the call. “Hello?”

 

“Hey,” Bobby grunts. “Can’t stay on long. How’re things goin’?”

 

Dean huffs. “It hasn’t been an hour yet, Bobby.”

 

“Gotta make sure you’re on top’a things.”

 

Dean scoffs. “So you don’t trust me, old man?”

 

“Stop bitchin’. We got a serious situation.”

 

“Yeah we do,” Dean groans. “This call’s gonna be the death of my patties!”

 

“Fuck you, Winchester.”

 

“I’d rather you not, but I’m sure the invitation is special.”

 

“Whatever,” Bobby scoffs. “I’ll call back in a bit.”

 

“Aw, Bobby. You don’t like talkin’ to me?” Dean grins.

 

“Just keep your phone on you, idjit.”

 

“Course. Wouldn’t dream of leavin’ it lying around.”

 

Bobby groans, mutters something below his breath, and hangs up. Dean sighs, slipping his phone into his pocket before returning to his burger patties, flipping them again before reaching for the cheese to put on them. He throws Castiel a weak smile.

 

“Sorry,” he offers, unwrapping a cheese slice. “Bobby’s a character, but he’s a duty-bound kinda guy, y’know?”

 

Cas nods slowly. “He seems… interesting.”

 

Dean snorts, laying the cheese over the steaming patty. “That’s one way of putting it.”

 

“Aggressive.”

 

“Ah, there you go. That’s a good word."

 

“Your, uh, friends,” Cas says slowly, “are… curious as well.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Dean hums, shrugging as he lays cheese down on the second patty. “They’re good people, can’t deny that. Most dedicated people I’ve met.”

 

“I won’t argue that,” Cas murmurs. “They-- you’re all doing a lot. For me, I mean.”

 

Dean shrugs again, turning off the burner under the burgers and grabbing a spatula. “It’s what we do.”

 

“Yeah,” Cas says quietly. He shifts, still standing awkwardly in the doorway, the low volume of the television a humming background noise of upbeat music and girlish squeals.

 

“If you wanna head back into the living room, I can bring the food,” Dean offers, since he is, after all, a highly gracious host. He lays out the buns on two paper plates, scooping up the patties and plopping them between the slices of bread. “I’ve got tomatoes, lettuce, ketchup… pick your poisons.”

 

“Uh. Lettuce and tomatoes, please… and pickles?”

 

“Sure thing,” Dean nods, smiling. “I’ll get that made up and out to you in a minute, okay?”

 

“I can help, Dean, you don’t have to make mine….”

 

“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Dean grins, a little cheekily, shaking his head at Cas’ advance. “Go sit down, asshat. I got this.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Course I’m sure. Go on, now.”

 

Cas sighs, lingering a moment longer before heading back out to the couch. Dean hums, content as he digs out the condiments, making Cas’ up with his requested additions before slathering his own in lettuce, tomatoes, ketchup, mustard, and a pinch of pepper to heighten the flavor. When it came to burgers, Dean had no problem going all out. He scoops up the plates, feeling less burdened as he takes them out to the living room, plopping Cas’ down on the coffee table before him. The sky outside is dark, now, with late evening, and Cas has exchanged the room light for a less intense lamp stood up on his side of the couch.

 

“There you go,” Dean says, putting his own plate down on the table. “Want a beer?”

 

“Oh. No thank you,” Cas says, shifting forward to get to his burger. “I, uh… I don’t drink.”

 

Dean nods, shrugging. “I don’t judge. Want some water?”

 

“Sure.”

 

Dean nods, returning to the kitchen, grabbing a beer bottle for himself before pouring Cas a glass of water and returning to the living room. “Here,” he says, handing it over.

 

“Thank you,” Cas sighs, taking it and sipping from it, putting it back on the table afterwards. “This is… very gracious of you. I appreciate it.”

 

“S’nothin’. Don’t worry about it,” Dean waves an airy hand, popping the top off his beer bottle.

 

“It’s more than nothing,” Castiel insists. “This is….”

 

“Hey, hey, c’mon now,” Dean says, grinning, putting off Cas’ words. “No chick-flick moments. Seriously. It’s fine.”

 

Cas is still frowning at him, so Dean just huffs, making a slightly childish whining noise at him. “Eat your burger, huh? I made that piece of Heaven, it deserves to be eaten.”

 

Cas rolls his eyes, and Dean takes it as a good sign that Cas finally takes his burger between his hands, raising it to his mouth and biting into it. His eyes go big immediately, and Dean’s never felt more prideful, probably, than seeing the pleasured shock written all over Castiel’s face. Cas turns to him, chewing eagerly so that he can swallow and speak.

 

“Wow,” he says immediately, and Dean grins widely. “This is… wow.”

 

Dean snickers. “Comprehensive of you.”

 

“This is _amazing_ ,” Cas insists, ignoring Dean’s comment. “I’ve never… wow. I love this.”

 

Dean flushes a little, almost bashful behind his inflated cockiness. “I’m glad you like it,” he says, smiling stupidly as Cas takes another earnest bite. Cas hums happily, and Dean can’t help but feel a warmth in his chest at making the man relax, making him _smile,_ really, even if just for a moment.

 

Cas turns to him again, and Dean’s breath catches a little. Cas’ eyes are bright, the blues happy and warm, his cheeks flushed with joyful pink, and Dean has to take a second to refocus before he can really breathe again, enraptured. The phenomenon is something Dean doesn’t recognize, hasn’t faced before, but something in his gut is afraid to question the gravitational pull drowning Dean in Cas’ eyes, as if the whole sensation will vanish if Dean tries to grasp onto it, tries to control the rapids pushing him under.

 

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas says again, brightly, and Dean thinks his ears are burning red-hot. “This is wonderful.”

 

“Y-you’re welcome,” Dean manages, tongue thick in his mouth, throat almost swollen with an ache he doesn’t understand. Cas smiles again, and Dean gulps as Cas bites into the burger again, thoroughly enjoying it.

 

Cas _moans_ at the taste, and, well _shit_ , Dean’s pants are tight.

 

Cas’ eyes flicker to him, and Dean coughs, his face as red as his ears as he hurries to get his legs adjusted in a way that Castiel won’t see what’s most likely a tent popping up in his pants.

 

“Are you going to eat your burger?” Cas asks curiously, and Dean blinks, remembering his own food, lying uneaten and cooled on its paper plate.

 

“Oh. Uh. Yeah,” Dean croaks, coughing again, clearing his voice. “Yeah. I will. I’m going to. Uh. Now.”

 

Cas frowns at him. “Is everything alright?”

 

“Yeah,” Dean says quickly, stumbling again over his own words. “Yeah, I-- I’m fine. Just, uh, well….” He coughs _again,_ and hates himself a little. “Y’know. It’s, uh… hot. Hot in here.”

 

Cas blinks, giving Dean an odd look. “Oh,” he says slowly. “Um. Okay.”

 

“Okay,” Dean repeats weakly, smile embarrassingly sheepish, still pink in face as he sits forward to grab his own burger, biting hurriedly into it to keep from having to speak. He can still feel Cas’ eyes on him, so he flicks his eyes to the television, trying to find something to say. It’s not hard, fortunately, and Dean thinks that the universe may be on his side, for a second.

 

“That dress is _awful,”_ he comments of the woman on the screen, and he’s thankful when Cas’ eyes move from him to the television, blinking at it. He looks over at Cas in time to see the man’s face screw up in distaste.

 

“Ew.”

 

Dean relaxes, enough to snicker. “S’what I was thinking. She looks like a cream puff.”

 

“Or an oompa loompa,” Cas mutters. “It’s not even her fault. She looks great, but that dress is god awful.”

 

“Tell me about it.”

 

“She needs a mermaid. And something strapless.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, alright, Pashmina.”

 

“It’s _Pnina,_ Dean.”

 

“Tomato, tohmato.”

 

“That’s not even a good argument,” Cas insists.

 

“Course it is. Who made you King of the Arguments?”

 

“Don’t be stupid.”

 

“That’s just a part of my natural charm.”

 

“Yeah, I bet,” Cas mutters, biting into his burger again. “Even your burgers taste like stubbornness.”

 

“Woah, hey,” Dean warns. “You can rag on me, but don’t you rag on my babies.”

 

“Your ‘babies’?” Cas snorts. “Seriously?”

 

“I made that for _you,_ man. And you’re fucking enjoying it,” Dean insists. “Don’t insult them. When’s the last time you had anything that nice, huh? That burger is top-notch.”

 

Cas has stiffened at Dean’s jab, however, and Dean falters to a stop, himself, feeling abrupt guilt hit him when he realizes what his words have sounded like, even if they weren’t meant that way. “Cas, man, I--”

 

“I don’t think I’m hungry anymore,” Cas says quietly, dropping the last half of his burger back onto his paper plate, abandoning it. He stands, brushing off his hands. “I need to use the restroom, I think.”

 

_“Cas,”_ Dean insists, getting up to block Cas’ way. “Cas, c’mon. I’m sorry, that’s not what I--”

 

“Not what you meant,” Cas snaps, no humor left in his tone, only barely-restrained anger. “Of course not. But it’s still what you said.”

 

“Cas, I’m _sorry.”_

 

“Whatever,” Cas mutters, trying to duck around Dean. “I really don’t want to hear it.”

 

Dean huffs irritably, blocking him off. “It’s not like I _wanted_ to insult you,” he persists firmly, a little peeved that Cas won’t even look him in the eyes, his gaze, rather, on the far wall past Dean’s face. “It was just a joke. We were having fun!”

 

“Well, now we’re not, are we?” Cas says coldly. “Let me _by,_ Dean.”

 

“No fucking way.”

 

“Let me by!”

 

“No,” Dean hisses, poking Cas firmly in the chest, finally managing to get Cas’ venomous look on him. “I barely know anything _about_ you, Cas! It’s not like I meant to smack you and your trigger warning right in the face!”

 

“But you did!”

 

“And I fucking apologized, didn’t I!”

 

Cas grits his teeth, glaring. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

 

“Too fucking late, then. I’m not letting you off.”

 

“I thought you ‘didn’t do chick-flick moments’,” Cas snarls. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to just sit here and spill out my fucking guts to you.”

 

“I’m not telling you to,” Dean hisses. “But if you’d tell me what topics to fucking avoid, we could stay out of this mess again. You need to fucking calm down.”

 

_“You_ calm down!”

 

_“You_ started this shtick!”

 

“Because you’re an asshole!”

 

“Don’t you turn that on me,” Dean snaps, metaphorical hackles quivering with agitation. “Get off your high horse and just talk to me about what’s going on! That would be easier than fighting!”

 

“Says you!”

 

“Anyone would say that!” Dean barks, waving his arms in a burst of aggravation. “No one would rather scream and piss at each other than just fucking talk!”

 

“Everyone I fucking know would rather throw a punch than fucking talk!” Cas spits, trembling with anger.

 

“That’s not _my_ fault!”

 

“I didn’t say it was! But that’s just how it fucking is! That’s my life!” Cas shouts. “That’s me, Dean! Homeless whore, up for grabs with the neighborhood! Fighting is my whole, damn _life!_ How would someone like _you **ever**_ know what that was like?!”

 

“I’ve had to fight, too,” Dean hollers back. “I lost my mother when I was four! I grew up with a father who was a maniac! I had to take care of my brother every day until he was eighteen! And then our dad fucking ran out on us! The only reason I got a life that wasn’t a high school diploma and a fucking bar job was because Bobby was there for us! I had to fight for my life too!”

 

“Oh, I’m so fucking _sorry,_ Dean,” Cas growls. “I’m so sorry your life was so _bad.”_ He makes a wild, furious gesture with his arms, steaming with rage. “I didn’t even _know_ my father! I didn’t get to know my= mom! They died in a car crash! Some fucking asshole with no alcohol tolerance and no hands on the fucking wheel took them from us!”

 

Tears are streaming down Cas’ face, and even through the haze of their fight, of red vision and fury, Dean wants to reach out to him, wants to wipe the tear tracks away, feels horrible for even being the reason they’re spilling them down his flaming cheeks, his eyes matching scarlet, raw.

 

“All twelve of us stuck in some fucking group home!” Cas screams, more tears falling, washing over the raw planes of his cheeks. “And then vanishing once we got old enough! Getting the fuck away from their outdated meals and bug-infested beds and families that would take you home for a week, then put you right _fucking_ back! Leaving each other to fend for ourselves because there wasn’t anything to fucking hold together! Who the hell do you think wants to hire some dirty _orphan,_ no matter how fucking smart we are?!”

 

“Cas--”

 

“Some of us have to do what we _don’t want to do!”_ Cas shrieks, voice thick and breaking in places, choked up, tears raining from his wet blue eyes. “Some of us have to sell our bodies because it’s the only way we get paid! Some of us have to bargain off our mouths and asses so we can eat and sleep in a fucking bed instead of in some alley way! Some of us have to say yes when we mean no, and let some stranger stick their dick into us because _we have nothing else!_ Because no matter how smart we are, we’re worth no more than _dirt under your shoes!”_ He’s sobbing now, words barely coherent. “So I’m sorry that _your_ life was _fucked up!_ I’m so _fucking **sorry!”**_

 

Dean grabs Cas’ face, stepping into his space, cradling Cas’ face between his own hands as he looks down at the man, face crimson and swollen and soaked with his own weeping.

 

“You didn’t have anyone,” he whispers, thumbs rubbing at Cas’ tears, as if trying to erase them. “I know. I get it, Cas. It’s not okay, I know, but-- but I can help. Let me help, Cas. I can if you’ll let me, and-- and not just now.”

 

Cas sobs something Dean doesn’t catch, no longer comprehensible, and so Dean just goes on, feeling just as shaken by Cas’ explosion, his story now floating in the open with weight like an elephant.

 

“Cas, hey. Hey, look at me. Look at me,” Dean insists, clutching Cas’ face tightly between his hands. “I get it, Cas, okay? I get it. I’m sorry. I get it, Cas, I do. Listen to me.”

 

Cas sobs weakly, peeling back the lids of his eyes, red and blue and so filled with sorrow. Dean exhales, and then he’s moving forward and his mouth is latching to Cas’, Cas’ lips so much softer than the words they’d spoken. He doesn’t stop to think he’s made a mistake, and he doesn’t even stop to think _about_ thinking he’s made a mistake because Cas is already latching back to him, despondent.

 

Dean’s gone from there. He yanks Cas down the hall.

 

~*~

 

Cas lets Dean pull him through the doorway, the bedroom blanketed in near-midnight darkness as Dean slams the door shut with his foot before slamming Cas' body against the same thing, bodies pressing so firmly together that Cas can feel every ridge and muscle of the man's body where it holds him against the wood, filling each others’ mouths with their pants and tongues, in some desperate dance to replace sadness and fear with pleasure.

 

Dean wastes no time in getting Cas' clothes off, tugging at Cas’ shirt once Cas has tugged Dean’s over his head and flung it somewhere to the right, then yanked off his ratty jacket and dropped it at their feet, only letting their kisses break for spare instants. Their bodies are flattened so close together that their heat rolls off them in waves, the temperature of the room following suit, the air crackling with long-held, tense electricity, sparks in every kiss, in Dean’s fingers where he grasps Cas’ hips while Cas’ fingers undo Dean’s jeans and shove them down before working at his own.

 

Cas doesn't get air until Dean has decided he wants more than just Cas' mouth, and Cas has barely gotten his own jeans down before Dean’s mouth is gone, and he gasps in urgent lungfuls of air as Dean bites at his neck, leaving hickeys not easily hidden, though neither seem to care. Cas moans, raking his hands through Dean's hair and dragging his nails over Dean's neck and shoulders, leaving pink lines like raised railroad tracks, his own arms always trying to pull himself impossibly closer to the police officer that had him pinned so hard by his bony hips that he couldn't have moved away if he tried.

 

Rationally, Dean know this is illegal. He knows it's something that could get him off the force forever, something that could get everything he’d worked so hard for thrown out the window in one fell swoop, something he couldn’t get back easily, if at all, but when he presses himself against Cas' hipbone, boxers straining where he's achingly hard, and tastes the sweat on Cas’ skin and feels the sting of his nails across the back of his neck, he thinks for a second that it could be worth it fucking up so badly with someone he barely knows just for the tastes and the touches.

 

Dean actually whines, the noise mixing with Cas’ groans, biting another brutal hickey into Cas’ collarbone. “Want you, Cas,” he manages, kissing every possessive mark he’s made. “You taste fucking _amazing_ , Cas, Jesus--”

 

Cas moves suddenly, abruptly, and actually _pushes_ Dean, Dean having underestimated the man's real strength in his wiry, thin bones. Cas shoves him back toward Dean’s bed, fingers slipping into the sides of Dean’s boxers to haul them off Dean’s legs mid-stride, letting loose the hard-on that had been throbbing horribly within them for the past minute or two. Dean gasps, himself, as Cas pushes him to sit on the edge of the bed, mouths latching together almost violently, again, taking a long moment to bite and kiss before Cas pulls back and sinks to his knees, already wrapping his hands around Dean’s dick with quick, nimble fingers. The sound Dean makes is needy and glorious, deep and reverberating in the hot room around them.

 

Cas’ hand jacks him off with precision and skill one could only have learned with years of experience, years of dirty motel rooms and fancy mansions that all looked the same when there was a bed and a whore. Now, however, there was a passion Cas was sure he hadn’t felt more than twice in the whole of his life, and he wasn’t eager to let it go, or sell it short with the least of his capabilities. He gives Dean no warning before he releases his cock, and Dean can’t even gasp a beg or a complaint before Cas ducks his head and his mouth is swallowing the head of Dean’s length, the sensations hot and tight and wet where Cas licks and sucks and laps.

 

“Fuck!” Dean manages in another gasp, one hand flying to bury itself in Cas’ still slightly lank hair, the curls dark and sweaty between his fingers, the other hand latched in the bedsheets, as if they were the only thing holding him to the Earth while Cas’ mouth makes him feel sky-fucking-high.

 

Cas takes him down easily, bobbing farther and farther and farther down, deep-throating Dean with ease that was almost scary, gag reflex non-existent, having ceased to exist a _long_ time ago (it was a good party trick, he knew, especially if he wanted some extra cash for his time, though for now, money wasn’t even a question). He moans, deep and throaty, sending hot vibrations shooting right down Dean's dick.

 

“Fuck, Cas, _fuck,”_ Dean growls, hips rocking instinctively against Cas’ mouth. “You’re so fucking _good,_ Cas, so fucking hot.”

 

It only spurs Cas on, and he moves faster, more purposeful, head bobbing quickly while Dean's hands yank in his hair, tugging enough to leave a hot, welcome sting. Dean’s hips arch up into his mouth, and Cas’ moans in approval, hands clutching at Dean’s thighs, pinching, propelling Dean on.

 

“Fucking _fuck,_ Cas,” Dean hisses hungrily, rocking his hips up and keening when Cas’ cheeks hollow enough to let his cock hit the back of Cas’ throat. “I want to fuck you into the fucking mattress, Cas, you’re so fucking _hot.”_

 

Unexpectedly, Cas smirks around his dick, and Dean can easily feel it, the curve of Cas' devilish mouth on him, tight and warm and wet. As much as Dean is enjoying this, as much as Dean wants to shove his hips against Cas’ mouth until he comes right down Cas’ throat, Dean means what he’s said, and Dean can't let him get too self-satisfied.

 

Cas doesn’t even have time to look surprised, then, as Dean drags him off his dick and hauls him up by his shoulders to kiss him, mouth brutal against Cas’ swollen, red lips. He feels Cas clutch at his arms, nails digging into his muscles, and Dean rumbles out a growl, manhandling him until they’re flipped, pinning Cas between the soft bed and his hard body. Dean grunts, rocking his hips down, and the sound Cas makes is so _glorious_ that Dean has to half rip Cas’ boxers from his legs before doing it again, the sensation only a thousand times better now that their bare cocks are rubbing and grinding together, Dean’s still slick and warm from Cas’ mouth.

 

Cas rolls them suddenly, Dean’s gravity whirling out of his control, and Cas’ mouth is kissing fiercely against Dean’s from above before Dean realizes that he’s not about to relinquish his control, especially not with how _powerful_ he feels. Cas barely gets a moan in before Dean propels them around again, thrusting Cas back against the mattress, leaving Cas breathless as Dean gyrates his hips against Cas’, ducking between the man’s spread legs to latch his teeth onto Cas’ left nipple, licking and nipping.

 

Cas screams into the open air, hands scrambling to clutch at anything around him, instantly going red-faced with pleasure, hips bucking desperately upward. Dean’s muscles warm with gratified dominance, and as Dean finishes with one nipple, mouth biting and kissing a line to the other to deliver it the same treatment as it’s match, Dean hikes Cas’ legs up, brisk and without tenderness, spreading them apart in a coarse competition to see just who can turn the other into a screaming mess the fastest, a competition Dean means, and already seems to be winning. Cas is still gasping like a fish out of water, and Dean only allows him another moment of his mouth on the swollen bud between his teeth before kissing a long line down Cas’ chest and stomach, his hands pushing Cas’ legs ever farther out, intent on carrying out on what he’d sworn.

 

Dean doesn’t bother with lube, yet, and Cas sobs a noise of joy and arousal when Dean laps his tongue at Cas’ entrance, tongue circling and massaging at the ring of tight muscle, working Cas’ tense, turned on body until his hole is relaxed and loose. Dean doesn’t ask before he flicks his tongue inside Cas’ heat, and Cas _squeals,_ hips writhing as Dean fucks his tongue in and out of Cas’ hole. Dean is fucking enthralled with him, and when Cas’ starts babbling, starts weeping noises and words of begging, Dean just moans, tongue rigid and moving faster as he moves a hand to slip two fingers into Cas’ lax, slippery hole.

 

Cas sobs something that no longer fits into a category of language, but rather of pleading, whining noises, flushed with urgent, needy desire. His body shakes and quivers under Dean’s touch and mouth, and Dean shivers right back, feeling more genuinely (as well as soberly) turned on than he has in a long, long time, based only on pure want, pure _need,_ alone.

 

Dean’s thorough in his work, licking and sucking and thrusting his fingers in tandem with his tongue, getting Cas right to the cusp, working him and working him and working him until Cas is nearly coming all over his own stomach, and it’s then that he finally, abruptly stops, leaving Cas wanting and open as he sits back on his haunches, pulling his fingers and mouth from Cas’ ass. Cas whimpers, cold and empty, but Dean isn’t wasting time; hastily, and with no lack of curses, Dean’s already digging a condom and lube from his bedside drawer, asking Cas for his consent in the quickest, easiest way possible, his own voice winded and wanting so fucking _much._

 

_“Please,_ Cas,” he manages in a pant, imploring, craving, but Cas is already nodding, spreading his own legs impossibly farther apart.

 

_“Fuck me,”_ Cas pleads, gasping his words, chest heaving, eyes blown so dark that they’re black, and Dean can’t wait any fucking longer.

 

“H-hurry,” Cas barely manages alongside his beg, because Dean is already doing just that, unable to hold off any more from the hottest man alive lying fucking eager and open beneath him. How can he not, how could _anyone_ not, in this position? He rolls the condom on, stroking it in a quick slather of lube, and, aligning himself, pushes easily into Cas’ body, like he was made to fit perfectly there, and only so amazingly there, back arching from the pressure, the heat, eliciting a moan he can’t contain.

 

Cas whines, back bowing upward, gasping at the fill, at how big Dean feels inside of him, filling up every crevice and open place inside of him. He gasps, hot and full and thick with pleasure, hands clasping tightly to Dean’s back and arms, and Dean grunts and groans, laying himself fully over Cas’ trembling form, face pressing into Cas’ neck, the entire moment so animalistic and dirty-sweet and filthy, like a fantasy Dean has never truly experienced before. Cas whimpers, arching his back again desperately, clawing at Dean's hair and skin, urging him on, and Dean hisses against Cas’ collarbone, getting his heels dug into the mattress before rocking upward, thrusting fiercely into Cas, slamming himself up forcefully enough to hear the slap of skin on skin, his arms tight around Cas’ form, plastering them together.

 

Cas groans something like _“flipfucking **shit** fuck”_ before shifting to wrap his legs around Dean's waist, his own heels digging into the muscles of Dean’s lower back, deepening every shove of Dean’s cock inside of him, hot and heavy and full. Cas pants, hands yanking on Dean’s hair to pull his head back near Cas’, lips seeking out Dean's again, something Dean provides without question. Dean moves with a harsh, steady pace, dick disappearing deliciously inside Cas’ body with his motions, and Cas rocks with it, the sensations almost too much to bear, now. Cas moans again, licking into Dean's mouth, mapping every inch, and Dean yields easily to him, letting Cas probe where and as much as he wants. He wishes he could bottle Cas' whines and moans and keening, save them forever, replay them in his brain over and over again, the sounds better than anything else.

 

His pace is already starting to slip into erratic when he finds Cas' sweet spot, the smaller man’s body still pinned underneath him, and Cas writhes when Dean’s steady, sharp thrusts hone in on that spot, hitting it with perfect, practiced force. They’re both not even making noise, anymore, just gasping and grunting breathlessly, both too flushed and enraptured to even consider breathing more important than the touching and kissing and fucking. They’re both so savage to one another, Cas practically eating at Dean’s mouth, tongue fucking into it in some sloppy mimic of Dean’s cock fucking into his own body. It’s caring, somehow, but there’s nothing sweet or gentle about it; this is some kind of attempt, almost, to fuck out their frustrations and fears and desperations and anxieties on another willing, eager body.

 

Dean has one hand at the back of Cas' neck, practically holding him down to kiss him, but slowly he slides it along his back, to Cas’ ass, fingers kneading into it, guiding Cas in his grinds and rocks and rolls. Cas is nearly shaking with the need to come, groaning into Dean's mouth, one hand in Dean's hair, tugging mercilessly at it, the other raking raised, pink lines into Dean's skin, marking Dean’s shoulders and back with his own touch, like some sort of claim. Dean presses into his hands, loving the feel of them in his hair, the way his scalp tingles and prickles under his touch, and subsequently drags a hand around from Cas’ ass, wrapping his fingers around Cas’ cock, giving the ignored length a tug before jacking him at a steady pace. Cas cries out soundlessly, movements without rhythm as he barrels toward his release. Dean just sets a rougher, more brutal pace, Cas' body rocking with his every thrust.

 

Cas whimpers, eyes shining with need, and Dean moves his lips to Cas’ bared neck, biting and licking and marking.Cas gasps and groans, hands tugging relentlessly at Dean's hair, clawing at Dean's shoulders and arms, leaving pink lines in his wake. Dean growls, hips jumping senselessly, and gives one-two-three--

 

Cas cries out Dean’s name when he finally, _finally_ comes, and it sends Dean right over the edge with him, whining into Cas’ neck as they release together, exhaustion slamming into ecstasy like a bowling ball. Dean slumps over Cas’ body once he’s finished, both panting hard, trembling.

 

Dean takes at least five minutes to remember his own name before he manages to get his hips to work, pulling out of Cas’ body, and by that time Cas is already asleep, hole loose and red, Cas’ cheeks the same color. Dean sighs satedly, almost loopily happy as he manages to get the condom off himself and thrown lazily in (or somewhere near) the trashcan beside his bed.

 

He, once again, forgets that he’s supposed to be protecter, not a lover, and proceeds to slip under the blankets, tug them over himself and Cas, draw Cas to his side, and fall fast asleep.

 

~*~

 

Three hours later, Dean’s phone rings, and Cas wakes up enough to answer it, sex-drunk and brain sloppy, Bobby Singer’s name written across the screen. He doesn’t notice the shadow of someone else in the room until the person’s literally standing at his bedside, and by then it’s too late.

 

There’s a _swish_ , a flash of sharp pain, and Cas’ world goes fuzzy. He feels longer, thin fingers around his wrist, then the sensation of something cold dragging on the back of his hand. Someone laces his fingers with Dean’s, where the man lies next to him, still dead asleep, and Cas gets a view of their hands before the pain pounding at his skull consumes his consciousness entirely.

 

**_65_** is scrawled on the back of Dean’s hand, and **_66_** on the back of his own.

 

Cas faints. By the time the police burst into the house, at Bobby’s command, Cas and Dean are already gone.


	5. Chapter 5

When Dean wakes up, alone, to the sound of his phone trilling, his first, disgruntled thought is a frustrated _crap._

 

His second, more aware thought, is **_CRAP._**

 

Wide awake, he jerks, his attempt to sit up _restrained._ It takes him a moment to realize the scratchy material is rope, and that he’s bound, by wrists, chest, and feet, to a slab of some sort, made of rotted and molded wood, screwed together like a toddler had gone at it, splinters and crooked, rusty nails poking up into Dean’s shoulders, back, and legs. He feels panicky immediately, who wouldn’t?, and a few more tugs at the ropes holding him down do him absolutely no good, the ropes sturdy and tight compared to the seemingly worse-for-wear state of the wood he’s bound to. He forces himself to steady his breathing, heart racing with panic, swallowing to try and tame the pounding of his heart in his ears.

 

_Cas,_ his brain supplies suddenly, in sharp remembrance, and Dean’s mouth goes desert-dry as his eyes find, by turning his head to look to his left, the body lying in the darkness beside him. He can just make out Cas’ form in the pitch black of wherever it is they are, unmoving and quiet, limp where he’s tied to the same slab of wood Dean is, long and propped at what Dean’s horrified brain can only guess is a sixty-nine degree angle. There’s a spot on Cas’ head where something dark is smeared down Cas’ significantly paler temple, and Dean jolts with fury when he realizes that the splotch is a dried patch of thick blood stuck to Cas’ skin where it had once trailed from his hairline. They’re both dressed, Dean notes, but since he obviously doesn’t remember getting dressed himself, he can only assume that their kidnapper took that responsibility into his own hands.

 

He grimaces, feeling sick again. His stomach already feels like it’s churning, and Dean can probably attest that to some form of chemical used to keep him sedated while he was taken from his home; his instincts otherwise would have woken him, but he had been unlucky. Chemicals or not, however, this situation _was_ , however, due to his own dumb-fucking-actions. He had been so _stupid,_ getting lost in the fucking moment with Cas, and he’d let down his guard in the heat of the moment. Now here they were, captured by the man he’d sworn to catch, as well as protect Castiel from.

 

He’d been a fool, a total idiot, and now that was going to cost them their lives.

 

A little cough comes from Cas’ direction, and Dean looks around hurriedly, concerned as Cas comes slowly to, a weak groan slipping from his lips as his eyelids flutter open. Dean can see how dazed he looks, even in the darkness, and gives him a moment to try and regain some awareness before attempting to speak to the dark-haired boy.

 

“Cas,” he whispers, very quietly, keeping his voice low to avoid being heard by anyone possibly skulking nearby. “Cas? Are you okay?”

 

Cas moans weakly again, and after a minute he seems to figure out that, not only is he very awake, but he’s also very not-where-they-were-before. He shifts, trying to move like Dean had when he’d woken, finding himself just as heavily restrained as Dean had found himself. Dean can see his eyes, big and blue, widen in the darkness, and the same panic bouncing around in Dean’s head and thumping in Dean’s chest flowers across his face.

 

“Please don’t tell me we’re where I think we are,” Cas’ voice comes, small and pitchy, and Dean’s stomach twists at the pure fear in the boy’s voice. “This can’t be happening.”

 

“It’s okay,” Dean whispers fiercely, and it feels like a total lie on his tongue. “We’re going to get out of here. We’re going to get out of here, I swear.”

 

“We’re not,” Cas whispers, his voice bordering on the total breakdown it appears he’s about to have. “We’re going to die. He found us and we’re going to _die--”_

 

“Stop, stop that,” Dean hisses, shaking his head quickly. “We’re not going to die. We are _not_ going to die.”

 

“He’s already marked us,” Cas says, shaking, and Dean swerves his gaze down to see that Cas isn’t lying. Even in the dim darkness, he can make out two big, black numbers on the back of his left hand, and when he looks over to Cas again, he can see another number printed on the back of Cas’.

 

Dean’s throat fills with a lump that he can only identify as fear, but he swallows it down, eyes returning to Cas’. “I swear,” he murmurs, sincerity ringing in his voice. “I swear I’ll get us out of here. I’m not going to let you die. We’re getting out of here.”

 

“Dean--”

 

“I _swear,_ Cas,” Dean insists, refusing to let the terrified boy go on. “This isn’t it. We’re not-- we’re not going to be victims. Not like this. Not like _fucking_ this.”

 

Cas swallows, and it’s then that the barn’s door swings open with a loud creak. Cas stiffens, going very still, as if the footsteps now approaching them is a tyrannosaur, and they can escape if they simply don’t move. Dean gives him a forceful look, one that refuses to give up, and then he turns his head, eyes finding the shadow of the approaching figure, his face contorted into a glare of venom and anger. The shadow stops halfway across the room from them, footsteps quieting, reaches up, and tugs on the long copper wire hanging down like a fish hook looking for a catch.

 

The bulb, originally a musty, dim thing, has obviously been replaced, because the light that comes off it is bright enough to make Dean’s eyes ache with the glow. Dean blinks quickly, refusing to flinch back as he sees Cas do from the corner of his eyes, and Dean takes a moment to question himself, vaguely, about how such a scared boy could ever have been drug into their precinct for being a possible accomplice.

 

The man standing before them is tall and blonde, and his face is twisted in a sort of awful glee that sends chills through Dean’s body, his gut twisting in a sickening knot. His clothes are simple, a button up over an old tee-shirt and jeans that look a half-decade worn, and it’s just a little more terrifying to see him like that, to see a normal person standing before him, and yet to know what that seemingly average man had done to so many.

 

Ignoring his own fear, his anxiousness, Dean contorts his face into the most deadly glare he can manage, eyes burning into the man, into _Lucifer,_ with awful force. The murderer just grins, and his eyes are filled with something that sends another invisible shudder rattling through Dean.

 

“Hi there,” Lucifer purrs, voice calm, nearly velvety in texture, smooth off his tongue. “I hope your trip didn’t… rattle you.” He laughs softly, but chillingly. “You both seemed content enough when I brought you here.”

 

Cas exhales beside Dean, and Dean can hear the shake in the breath; he thinks Cas might be physically trembling, too, but he doesn’t want to take his eyes off Lucifer, doesn’t want to pull his gaze from the man named after the _devil,_ not even to try calming the poor boy beside him.

 

Lucier hums, taking another dragging step forward, and Dean swallows the lump of nerves building in his throat, the only sign of unease he’ll allow to show. Lucifer smiles, the expression sickening in its syrupy sweet appearance.

 

“Come now,” he says, snickering gently. “Surely you both can’t be at a loss for words, huh? I was hoping you’d have some potentially interesting conversation in you. I know _you’re_ smart, Cassie,” he says, smiling at his younger brother, his expression so easy that it just makes Dean even more mad.

 

Lucifer’s eyes flick to Dean again, and Dean meets the man’s gaze without hesitation, without fear. “I heard a little about you,” Lucifer hums, before giving a little chortle. “I’ve gotten quite a few differing opinions.”

 

Dean hisses out a snarl of aggravation; Lucifer sneers.

 

“Now, now,” he laughs, coming closer to where Dean is tied down. “None of that. Resistance only makes it all worse, you know.”

 

“Fuck you,” Dean spits, ignoring the frantic, terrified look Cas is sending him from his peripheral vision. “You crazy fucking bastard.”

 

“I guess there’s one thing for sure, huh?” Lucifer hisses back, a cruel smirk on his lips. “You’re a feisty one.”

 

“Let us go,” Dean growls virulently. _“Now.”_

 

Lucifer tuts, giving a sigh like Dean’s no more than an impatient toddler arguing for a cookie. “Now, now,” he says again, condescending, just escalating Dean’s rage. “There’s no need to get angry, my dear officer. Can I call you Dean?”

 

_“Fuck_ you.”

 

“You should watch your language, officer,” Lucifer says, not even bristling at Dean’s aggressive anger. “It’s not very professional of you.”

 

“Professional, my fucking _ass,_ you psycho piece of donkey _shit.”_

 

_“Dean!”_ Cas whispers fiercely, almost in a hiss, his voice threaded with horror and shock at Dean’s boiling fury; Lucifer just looks _amused._

 

“You’ve got a lovely way with words, Detective. You remind me of myself, when I was your age.”

 

“I’m _nothing_ like you, you fucking _creep,”_ Dean spits, metaphorical hackles fully risen and teeming with rage.

 

“Perhaps not,” Lucifer chuckles, grinning at the man. “I killed my first victim when I was your age.” He gave a mocking whistle. “She had a pair of legs on her, that one. I almost wanted to save them.” He smirks. “I love trophies, you know.”

 

“You’re fucking _sick.”_

 

Lucifer cackles, the sound loud, chilling, echoing in the barn around them. “As if I haven’t heard _that_ one before!” he giggles, as if Dean’s just made a spectacularly funny joke. “That’s _rich.”_

 

“You’re _insane,”_ Dean hisses, eyes blazing with his glare on the laughing psychopath before him.

 

Lucifer just sighs as he comes down from his chuckle, seeming to be wiping a tear of amusement from his eye. “You’re going to have to be a little more original, Detective,” he hums, still chortling under his breath as he moves to the left, moving around Dean and behind the Rack.

 

Dean squirms, twice as disquieted having the murderer where his eyes can’t see. Cas is still looking at Dean with pale-faced, open fear, but Dean doesn’t notice, trying desperately to get his head around enough to see what Lucifer is doing. After a moment, Dean hears the man’s hands clutch to something, before the sounds of wheels rolling over the ground floats through the air, squeaking and squealing. Lucifer appears again shortly, rolling out what looks like a stolen shopping cart, and Dean’s heart drops into his stomach, twisting up with the nausea creeping up his throat.

 

The cart is _filled_ with instruments, some short, some long, some blunt, some sharpened to the point that makes it almost physically painful just to _look_ at. There are knives, screwdrivers, hacksaws, drills, even a fucking _spear_ stood up through one of the chain links in the basket of the cart. There’s jumper cables coiled in the bottom of the basket, in-between a pair of rusty garden shears, a nine-tailed whip with small spikes all down it’s leather vine, and a tangle of thick but fraying rope. On the bottom rack of the cart is an old, black toolbox, shoved down there with an electric battery and a white tank that looks like it might hold some form of noxious gas. There’s a giant stone mallet hanging from a wrist strap on the side of the cart, and in the smaller, top rack, where children would usually sit, there’s a collection of handguns, all of different make and color, all similar in size, hooked through the bars. In a bucket off the front of the cart, Dean can see a collection of bleaches, soaps, and medicinal chemicals that he can’t name. There’s a small box tucked in the bucket, as well, and through the clear top Dean can see a range of needles, some short and thin, others thick and long, as if they’d come straight out of some violent children’s cartoon. Every last thing in the cart is rusty and stained, patchy with brown and black spots that makes Dean’s stomach turn and keep turning. Beside him, Cas has gone a white color that no living human should have been able to go.

 

Dean’s never been more scared in his life.

 

Lucifer seems to cackle a little when he notices Dean’s face, a satisfied expression crossing his face. “What?” he purrs, poking the sharp tip of his spear (fuck knows how he even got it) with an expression that’s almost _bored._ “Nothing witty to say now, Detective?”

 

Dean makes something of a choking noise, not even caring how broken it sounds. “You can’t do this,” he manages, voice nearly cracking. “You can’t do this to us.”

 

Lucifer smiles sweetly. “Oh, no, now, don’t worry,” Lucifer hums, as if he’s actually trying to _console_ Dean, standing there with his weapons out like it’s just another fucking Tuesday. “I promise, it’s never as bad as you think.”

 

“This is fucking _crazy,”_ Dean breathes, shaking his head desperately. “You can’t. You _can’t do this.”_

 

A smile tilts Lucifer’s lips up. “Actually,” he murmurs softly, “I _can.”_

 

Cas’ bottom lip is quivering, and suddenly he speaks, voice broken and scared. “Please,” he whispers, the words shaky and thick from the lump in Cas’ throat. “Please let us go.” He sobs weakly, two little tears dripping from his blue, blue eyes, slipping down his pale cheeks. “Please, Lucifer. Please don’t do this.”

 

Lucifer seems to pause a moment, his eyebrows rising slowly. After a moment he clucks his tongue once, quietly, and sighs, moving easily to Cas’ side, reaching up and touching Cas’ cheek with something that could almost be _tenderness._ Cas winces weakly away from his brother, breath hitching, trembling worse under Lucifer’s persistent, but gentle touch. The older man sighs again, and wipes a newly fallen tear or two from Cas’ left cheek.

 

“I’m sorry, Cassie,” he insists quietly, tilting Cas’ chin up until Cas is forced to look at him, eyes wet and shining, cheeks bright red with flush. “But there’s just no other way.”

 

“Please,” Cas sobs, but Lucifer’s already pulling away, turning and moving back toward his cart. “Please, no, no, no….”

 

“Hush now, baby brother,” Lucifer says, almost a drawl, eyes flitting over the items in his cart, considering it all, trying to find just the right tool to start with.

 

“No, no,” Cas weeps, yanking desperately at his bonds, struggling badly, sobs getting louder and louder. “No, no, no, no, _no, no_ , _no, **no--!”**_

 

“I _said--”_ Lucifer barks, and suddenly he’s moving before either captive can see. **_“Hush!”_** His wrist makes a flicking motion, and Cas _screams_ as the whip slices across his leg, splitting the skin instantly, blood seeping in a surge to the surface of Cas’ pale leg, dribbling down his skin from a series of long, thin slashes.

 

“Cas!” Dean shouts in anger and alarm, eyes huge on Cas’ sobbing, gasping, agonized form. His eyes turn on Lucifer, blazing with fury. “You fucking bastard!”

 

“You hold your stupid tongue, boy,” Lucifer snaps, real anger in his voice this time, no longer chiding or childish. “Or you’ll get the same.”

 

“I fucking dare you,” Dean snarls, struggling furiously against his bonds. “You piece of _shit._ When I get loose, I’m gonna tear your fucking head off.”

 

“That’s _enough,”_ Lucifer spits, and lashes his arm out again. The whip makes contact with Cas’ leg a second time, and Cas howls as new marks appear, slowly turning red before letting blood drop down his pale skin. Lucifer moves forward in a quick motion as Cas sobs, shaking and weeping as Lucifer gets _right_ in Dean’s face.

 

“You have no power here, Detective,” he snarls, his voice ragged with anger and fire. “No one can save you from me.”

 

“I’ll find a way,” Dean snaps, blazing with fury, Cas’ sobs making his ears ring with anger. “I’ll find a fucking way out, and then I’ll fucking kill you.”

 

Lucifer’s face twists into a gruesome smirk. “We’ll see about that,” he hisses, and takes care to spit right into Dean’s face before stalking back to his cart, slamming the whip back down into the basket and seeking something else from it. Dean glowers at the man’s back before looking worriedly to Cas, trying to reassure with his expression and words alone.

 

“It’s okay,” he whispers, wishing he could reach out and comfort the man, or, better yet, get him loose and get them out of this fucking nightmare. “It’s okay. I’m going to get you out, Cas, I swear. Hey. Hey, look at me, Cas.”

 

The boy whimpers, eyes shining with agony as he turns his gaze on Dean, breathing hard, breaths ragged with pain as his gaze seeks Dean out like the officer is his only salvation. Dean swallows, trying to put as much reassurance into his eyes as he can.

 

Lucifer’s rustling stops suddenly, and after a long, last look at Cas, Dean looks around, fixing his glare back on the murderer before him. Lucifer draws out his arm out from the basket of the cart, pulling with him a long, curved blade, one of which Dean hadn’t seen before, the blade and handle bearing multiple, matching splotches of dried blood. He can hear Cas make a noise of stifled fear next to him, and Dean has to admit that he feels exactly how Cas sounds, his gut twisting with fear at the bare idea of what Lucifer could even _start_ to do with that. Lucifer’s eyes flick up to look at their faces, cold and calculating, and his mouth curves into a brutal smirk.

 

“You two are the last, you know,” Lucifer breathes, his smile getting wider and wider as he moves toward them again. “The last seals. This is destiny,” he says lowly, chuckling softly, eyes finding Cas’ bloody, hiccuping form. “Destiny that it would be my own blood to finish the ritual.”

 

“Don’t touch him,” Dean snarls, yanking viciously against his restraints.

 

“I’ve worked for months,” Lucifer says reverently, an insane gleam in his eyes. “I’ve worked for _months_ for this. And it’s finally here. The day of reckoning. The last of the trials.”

 

“You’re fucking _insane,”_ Dean hisses. “Whatever this bullshit is about rituals and trials-- it’s fucking _worthless!_ There aren’t any _trials!”_

 

_“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand!”_ Lucifer shrieks, eyes bulging with madness and fury, voice practically unearthly. _“You know_ nothing! _Stupid boy!”_

 

“You’re going to kill your own brother over _bullshit!”_ Dear roars, fighting the ropes holding him down. “See fucking _reason!”_ He shuts up abruptly, then, as Lucifer puts the knife warningly under his chin, pressing the blade barely against Dean’s neck. Cas makes a whimper of warning, of fear, but both men ignore him, eyes locked on each other.

 

“I’ve seen _reason,”_ Lucifer snarls lowly, eyes bloodshot with anger, lips turned down in a furious scowl. “I’ve seen what this world is like, _much_ more than you.” He snorts, shaking his head in a quick motion. “This world has secrets you can’t even _imagine,_ you-- you _idiotic_ boy. You have _no_ idea what’s under your very _nose.”_

 

“Sounds like a bunch of crazy-ass shit to me,” Dean remarks, making no effort to hold back his snark. He wasn’t going to plead for his life, wasn’t going to act like the man holding a knife at his neck was actually _sane_ in what he was doing. “What you’re doing is _wrong._ You’re a _murderer.”_

 

“Maybe,” Lucifer snarls. “But you know? I really don’t care _what_ you say.” He sneers, pulling the knife from Dean’s throat. “And it’s not like you have any choice in this, boy. Is it?”

 

Dean glares, huffing angrily. Lucifer grins, the expression full of evil mirth, full of satisfaction at Dean’s helplessness, pinned like a bug under Lucifer’s gaze. Lucifer held up the knife, waving it slowly in front of Dean’s face, eyes locked on Dean’s.

 

“I’m going to enjoy killing you,” he drawls lowly, watching Dean for an impossibly long second before turning away, tossing the curved blade back in the basket before flicking his gaze to Dean’s again, hand wrapping around the handle of a smaller, rustier knife, drawing it out of the basket. “But I’m going to make you suffer, first. You have to go before my poor brother, after all.”

 

Dean glares venomously, heart pounding harshly in his chest as Lucifer sticks his free hand in the bucket hanging at the end of the cart, drawing out a bottle of something that looks absolutely vile. Lucifer pops the cap on the bottle, giving an exaggerated sniff as he moves up to Dean’s body again. A smirk forms on his lips, and he pulls the bottle away from his nose, tilting the bottle slightly to slip the blade of the small knife through the opening, dipping the blade into the substance inside, thoroughly soaking it before pulling it out.

 

“This is a very rare type of acid,” Lucifer purrs, putting the bottle aside, retrieving a long rubber glove and slipping it on before holding the knife upright, the acid running over the blade. “And I’m fairly sure you won’t like it.”

 

Dean swallows, fear clenching around his heart, his gut tying in nauseating knots. “Don’t do this,” he croaks. “You’ll fucking regret this.”

 

“I really don’t think I will,” Lucifer cackles, eyes alight with a crazy fire. “In fact, I think I’m just going to _enjoy_ this.” He hums, eyes raking over Dean’s body. “Now, where to start….”

 

“Please,” Cas’ voice broke out, still shaking with fear and pain, tears still dripping down his cheeks. “Leave him alone, Lucifer, please. _Please.”_

 

Lucifer grins, and motions to Dean’s left arm. “Let’s start small, hm? I think that’s a _marvelous_ idea.”

 

“Lucifer, _please!”_

 

“And you know what?” Lucifer smiles, moving forward, eyes on Dean’s again. “I think we’ll make this into a challenge.” He cackles, eyes raking over Dean’s arm, his free hand reaching out to trace an invisible cut down Dean’s bicep, calculating his first cut. “Every time you speak, or scream…”

 

He puts the knife up, an inch from Dean’s arm, eyes finding Dean’s again. “I’ll give Cas a matching cut.” He smiles. “It’ll be romantic. A matching set.”

 

The knife pierces into Dean’s skin, and he _roars._ There’s no helping it, no helping the cry that comes from the pain of the first cut. The blade’s nothing, _nothing_ , compared to the acid that burns into the injury that Lucifer leaves, soaking into Dean’s blood, dripping down from the injury and burning streaks of red down Dean’s skin. Dean chokes on his agony, jerking in his restraints, tears of anguish building at the corners of his eyes, his breath gasping, heavy, his vision blurring.

 

Lucifer tsks, cackling over Dean’s pained breaths, over Cas’ cries of Dean’s name in utter alarm ringing in the background. “I think we can give him a freebie, don’t you, Cassie?” he laughs, already putting the knife to Dean’s shoulder. “He’s a virgin at this, anyways.”

 

He cuts a long, horizontal line across the front of Dean’s shoulder, and Dean nearly bites down on his tongue, eyes screwed shut, jaw clamped so tightly he thinks it might lock on instinct, or he _would_ think that, if he could think through the total pain enveloping him. He’s shaking badly, his hands clenched into tight fists, his knuckles going white at the strain. Cas sobs, screaming some plea for mercy at his brother, but Dean barely hears as Lucifer’s knife digs into Dean’s collar bone, drawing a U-shaped cut from the bone of the right side to the bone of the left side, blood seeping from it instantly, mixing with the agonizing sting of the acid burning into Dean’s skin, into the wounds, the cuts feeling like they’re on fire.

 

“Stop it, stop it,” Dean can only just hear Cas’ desperate weeping over the sound of his heartbeat throbbing in his ears. “Please. _Please,_ Lucifer. Hurt me, hurt me instead, leave him alone, please….”

 

“Isn’t that sweet?” Lucifer cooes to Dean, grinning as he presses the tip of his knife to the top of Dean’s left shoulder. He drags it down, down, drawing a long cut from Dean’s shoulder, down the back of his arm, all the way to the tip of his middle finger, the cut less deep, but no less agonizing. “My brother’s always been a softie, even if he’s a little rough around the edges, at first. Bark bigger than his bite, and all that. I think he got that from our father.” He snorts. “I mean, he would’ve. If good ole’ Dad had been around, after all.” He shrugs, putting his knife to Dean’s cheek. “Oh well.”

 

Dean grunts as Lucifer drags the knife across his cheek, humming in interest as Dean holds back a whimper of pain, his jaw locked tightly shut. “You’ve got an interesting tolerance for pain,” Lucifer purrs, almost sounding _impressed,_ which just makes Dean’s anger pulse all the worse under the fiery pain he’s in. “You’re either extremely dedicated, or just better at your job than I thought you were. Curious.”

 

Lucifer pulls the knife away, and there’s a moment where he does nothing except observe Dean, so Dean forces his jaw to loosen, gasping in desperate breaths of oxygen. He coughs at the rush of air, wheezing, shuddering as the motion of his chest rising and falling makes his injuries burn even worse. He resists a moan of pain, opening his eyes, his vision blurred with hot tears, escaping in slow, sluggish drops down his cheeks.

 

After a moment Lucifer makes a humming noise, like he’s made some kind of great decision, and he comes forward, fingers of his free hand messing idly with the bottom of Dean’s tee shirt. Dean glares weakly, stiffening as Lucifer brings his knife to the collar of Dean’s shirt, slicing down, cutting the fabric easily, the halves falling to Dean’s sides. Lucifer grins like he’s hit the jackpot, and Dean wants to vomit when the man puts his hand to Dean’s chest, eyes raking over it, like he’s deciding how worthy it is of his attention. Lucifer whistles after a moment, and smirks.

 

“I see why Cassie had a little crush on you, huh?” he laughs, tapping his fingers in a random pattern against Dean’s abdomen. “Not bad.”

 

“Fuck off,” Dean snarls, voice rough, and Lucifer laughs, dropping his hand, raising his knife again. Dean manages not to flinch, keeps himself from wincing away in fear, in desperation for the the pain to end.

 

“You’ve got spirit, I’ll give you that,” Lucifer hums, pressing the tip of his knife to the place under Dean’s right pectoral, letting the acid on the end take a moment to burn at Dean’s skin. Dean grits his teeth again, ignoring the pounding ache in his jaw as Lucifer contines. “But I did warn you about speaking, didn’t I?” He tsks. “Naughty boy.”

 

Dean’s heart comes to a stop, and his eyes flash open as Lucifer’s gaze finds Cas, a smile on his lips. “No,” he insists, already regretting his slip of tongue as the knife leaves his flesh, pulling away. Cas looks just as horrified, face pale. “No-- don’t!”

 

“Don’t worry, Dean-o,” Lucifer chuckles, moving toward Cas like a lion advancing on prey, eyes glinting with amusement as he lifts his knife, slicing Cas’ shirt down the front as he’d done with Dean’s. “I’ll get to you in a minute.”

 

“Don’t!” Dean begs, actually _begs,_ fighting his restraints as Lucifer puts the knife to Cas’ chest. _“No--!”_

 

It’s too late for that; Cas’ screams echo through the whole room as Lucifer slowly, as if with painstaking care, carves a circle into Cas’ skin, right in the center of Cas’ chest, Cas’ body jerking weakly under his knife, the restraints making it impossible for Cas to thrash away from Lucifer’s torture. Once Lucifer has finished the circle, he goes to carve a small triangle above it, and Cas shrieks and sobs, practically vibrating with pain, with agony as the knife cuts into his skin, the acid burning into him. Dean shouts, trying to make it stop, trying to get Lucifer to just _stop,_ but Lucifer goes on, carving a symbol inside the circle, and six smaller ones around the outside of it. Cas howls, blood dripping down his burning chest, the pain horrible, almost overwhelming, weeping terribly.

 

“Stop!” Dean shouts desperately, fighting against the ropes holding him. A pain erupts in his shoulder, and while he realizes that he’s probably popped his shoulder out of place, he continues to fight, screaming out at the psychopath mutilating his own brother. “Stop, stop, _stop!_ Leave him _alone!”_

 

Lucifer hums, and then he actually _does,_ stopping his motions, pulling the knife from Cas’ chest. Cas sobs, slumping bonelessly, shaking all over, blood and acid running in streams down his chest, face screwed up in pain, cheeks stained with tears. Dean swallows, flushing with guilt and horror, eyes only tearing away from Cas when Lucifer comes up to him again, horrible smile on his lips. He presses the tip of his knife to Dean’s chest, his eyes glinting.

 

“Now,” he purrs. “Where were we?”

 

It’s then that the doors to the barn bursts open, and Dean sees Lucifer whip around as a round of officers appear in the doorway, guns raised, the red and blue of sirens flashing behind them, muffled wails coming from the cars outside. “Freeze!” one barks, and Dean recognizes his brother’s voice as Lucifer turns back to Dean, wry smile on his face.

 

“Another time, then,” he chuckles, and flips the knife in his hand. “Hold this for me, would you?” he says, and proceeds to sink his knife to the hilt in Dean’s thigh.

 

Dean screams in agony, and the officers hurry forward, but Lucifer’s already gone, like a shadow, darting around Dean and behind the Rack, hurrying away. A section of the officers dash after him, guns raised, shouting to each other, but Dean’s ears are thudding too loud for him to understand what they’re saying, his vision blurring badly, blacking out at the edges. He vaguely sees that someone’s in front of him again, someone with long hair and worried eyes, but Dean only realizes that it’s Sam shouting fearfully at him when it’s already too late, and by then he’s sinking into blackness, his pain drifting away as unconsciousness swells up to finally consume him.

 

~*~

 

Dean doesn’t remember waking up the first time, but when he wakes up the second time he knows, subconsciously, that it’s not the first time. He groans, eyes fluttering open, wincing at the bright light that immediately assaults his retinas. He closes his eyes again, head throbbing, and waits for the nausea in his gut to pass before slowly attempting to open his eyes again, letting himself adjust.

 

The (unfortunately familiar) sight of the inside of the Lawrence Hospital ICU comes into view, and Dean groans, before sighing heavily. He’s laid out in a very uncomfortable hospital bed, and he’s propped up on at least three pillows, the bed angled so that he’s laid up at a forty-five degree angle. He sighs again, and shifts, wincing at the ache in his shoulder, which he realizes is hung up in a sling, cradled to his chest. He curses under his breath, rubbing at his pounding head with his free hand (which isn’t really free at all, a pulse monitor clipped on his index finger and an IV in the back of his hand).

 

“Careful, there,” he hears from the doorway of his room, and looks up to see Sam leaning there. His brother straightens up, hands in his pockets, a weak smile on his face. “Don’t need you causing anymore trouble.”

 

Dean scoffs, then gives him a smirk. “Me? Trouble? Never, Sammy.”

 

Sam hums, smile a little more genuine as he comes over, taking a seat beside Dean’s bed, leaning his elbows on his knees. “How’re you doing? Are you in any pain?”

 

Dean shrugs, and huffs when it makes his shoulder ache. “I mean, a little. M’okay, though, I think.”

 

A thought sparks abruptly in his brain, and he sits up a little straighter, concerned. “Cas,” he says. “Is he okay? Is he here?”

  
“Hey, hey,” Sam says quickly, giving Dean a _‘calm down’_ look. “Don’t worry, he’s here. They treated him a little while ago. He’s still sleeping, now.”

 

Dean nodded, relaxing, barely, before suddenly straightening again, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, eyes big. “Sam, what happened?” he insisted. “Lucifer-- did they catch him?”

 

Sam’s face contorts into a scowl, and Dean’s heart sinks. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

 

Sam huffs, eyeing Dean irritably. “Apparently being fast as hell is a family trait,” he groans. “I just wish Charlie had been there to fall on him.” He sighs, carding his hand through his hair before running it over his forehead. He shakes his head. “He must’ve had an escape plan ready, or some kind of… dunno. Secret exit.”

 

“Oh yeah,” Dean snorts. “A secret exit. Good work, Liam Neeson.”

 

“Fuck off,” Sam huffs. “You should be grateful we got there when he did. Lucifer missed the artery in your leg by about an inch.”

 

Dean sighs, rolling his eyes. “Fine.” He squints at his brother. “Where were we, anyway? From the inside, it looked like the original place.”

 

Sam sighs. “You _were_ in the original place,” he says.

 

“In Richmond, then,” Dean says, and frowns when Sam shakes his head. “What do you mean, no?”

 

“We were wrong,” Sam says. “The Rack in Richmond was older than the others we found, yeah. But the one you and Cas were in was even older. Unless there are more of these Racks, and we’ve got reason to believe it’s the last one, the Rack you and Cas were one was the _actual_ one.”

 

“Okay… so where was the _original_ original one?”

 

“Here,” Sam says. “In Lawrence.”

 

Dean’s eyes widen. “You’ve got to be shitting me. It’s been under our noses this whole fucking time?”

 

“Yeah,” Sam nods.

 

“So how did you find us?” Dean pries, confused. “If this warehouse was totally different, and apparently hidden from us? How do you know it’s the original one?” Sam’s face does something odd, twisting into a look Dean can’t quite read.

 

“We, uh… we got a tip,” Sam says carefully, sitting back. “From someone who must have been involved with this.”

 

“What? What does that mean?”

 

Sam purses his lips, before reaching into his pocket and drawing out a folded piece of paper. He opens it up and holds it out for Dean to see. A map of Northeast Kansas is printed on the paper, and in several places stars have been drawn, one on Lawrence, five in towns outlying the city; Dean recognizes them as the towns where they’d found the series of Racks, set up, always containing new bodies, new murders.

 

Sam taps at the star he’s draw on the paper, over Lawrence. “The warehouse was on the edge of town. It hasn’t been used in years, for anything except squatters. M’not sure any of us would have seen this if we hadn’t gotten that call. It’s the reason we found you.”

 

“Seen what?” Dean frowns. “I don’t understand.”

 

Sam nods, and drags a pen out of his jacket pocket, putting the map on his knee. From Richmond, he draws a line, connecting all of the marked towns outside of Lawrence in a big circle. Then he draws five lines: Holton to Richmond, Richmond to Dearborn, Dearborn to Harveyville, Harveyville to Grandview, and Grandview back to Holton, forming a slightly messy, but legible star inside the circle. Smack in the middle is Lawrence, where the original Rack, along with Dean and Castiel, had been found. Dean frowns.

 

“Isn’t that a….”

 

“Pentagram,” Sam grunts, nodding at Dean’s scowl. “Yeah. Basically. We think it’s the last one. I mean, we’ve found Racks at all the points of the star, and now the original at the center. At least for Kansas, I think we’ve seen all of them.”

 

Dean huffs, sitting back. “It would make sense,” he says. “Lucifer was fucking psycho. Believed he had to kill sixty-six people for some _trials,_ or something. S’not like a pentagram would be surprising, at this point. Probably had a whole fucking ritual for killing when and where, too. You saw what he fucking carved into Cas, right?”

 

Sam nods, grimacing, stuffing the map and pen away again. Dean sighs heavily.

 

“Okay,” he says. “You said you got tipped about the warehouse. Who put out the tip?”

 

Sam shakes his head. “I wish I knew,” he sighs heavily. “The guys who called had a trace blocker.” He gives Dean a meaningful look. “It had the same frequency as the one Lucifer used when he called the station to talk to Cas.”

 

Dean frowns, eyes narrowing. “What does that mean?” he asks.

 

“It means that whoever gave us the tip’s in contact with Lucifer,” Sam murmurs, interlocking his fingers and resting his chin on his hands, brow creasing in thought.

 

“But they gave Lucifer up,” Dean says slowly. “... right?”

 

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Sam sighs. After a moment he shakes his head, offering Dean a weak smile. “But that can wait for another day. You need some rest. We’ve got people stationed here and with Cas; if Lucifer comes around, we’re ready this time.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Dean mumbles. “We thought we were last time, too.”

 

Sam sighs again, heavily, and chooses not to be offended, getting up. “M’gonna go let Bobby know you’re awake, okay? You need anything?”

 

Dean moans like he’s been deprived. “A Big Mac.”

 

Sam hums, smirks. “How about two?”

 

Dean grins. “Have I told you lately that you’re my favorite brother?”

 

Sam smiles, offers a wave, and heads out, shutting the door behind him. Dean’s grin slips away, and instead falls into a frown, of confusion, of questioning. It’s a lot to take in, and he’s got questions without answers, which just makes him more frustrated and anxious to be lying around.

 

So they were half right from the beginning, then. Cas hadn’t been in cahoots with Lucifer as some kind of drug-dealing, incestuous escort, but _someone_ , apparently, was.

 

But who? And why, if they were working together, had they sold Lucifer out? Perhaps they _weren’t_ working together? But then how had they managed matching frequencies in blocking the tracers? And how would they have known exactly how Lucifer’s murder spree worked? And if they _were_ working together, did that mean that Lucifer wasn’t just killing for sport, for some kind of sadistic, insane pleasure? Was there some kind of ulterior motive? A bigger picture? Something _beyond_ these murders?

 

Dean sighs heavily, head pounding. It feels like too much to take in at once, especially after the weekend he’s had. _Maybe Sam’s right,_ he considers, letting his eyes close after a moment, feeling the inviting pull of unconsciousness past the throbbing of his headache. Lucifer’s still free, still working with someone they don’t know, a shadow in a pitch black room, and Dean’s laid out with a newly re-located shoulder and a sewed-up hole in his leg, but, he lets himself think as he slips back into sleep, maybe a little nap would do him some good.

 

But just a little one. He’s not missing out on those Big Macs for the world.

 

~*~

 

When Castiel wakes, similarly to the way Dean had, the first thing his eyes find is the person sitting in the wheelchair at his bedside, flipping through something on his phone with the arm that’s put up in a sling, his head tilted awkwardly to see the screen. Cas exhales, blinking, and after a moment he finds his voice, rough and somewhat choppy from disuse.

 

“Dean?” he croak-whispers, and green eyes flick up to find his face, eyes widening as they find Cas’ gaze.

 

“Cas,” he says softly, lowering his phone. Cas realizes the man’s free hand is covering Cas’-- hence, why Dean’s straining himself using his injured arm to use his phone-- but it doesn’t feel awkward, so Cas doesn’t draw attention to it, curiously determined to keep Dean’s touch on his skin.

 

“How are you feeling?” Dean murmurs, drawing Cas’ attention to him again. Cas breathes, considering, shifting weakly and wincing when his chest throbs with pain.

 

“M’chest hurts,” he whispers, and Dean’s face twists in sympathy. Cas swallows, trying not to think too much over why that is (and he remembers, in vivid technicolor).

 

“Yeah,” Dean sighs. “I figure.” His thumb rubs small circles into Cas’ hand, seemingly without thinking about it. “It’ll be okay, though, yeah?” He smiles a little. “They got you sewed up, and they got some pain meds in you. They’ll help.”

 

Cas nods. “Thank you,” he says, voice breaking.

 

“Don’t thank me, huh? I didn’t do anything special. You want some water? You sound rough.”

 

Cas nods, missing Dean’s touch when he pulls his hand back to grab a water bottle off the table next to Cas’ hospital bed, cracking it open by putting the bottle between his knees and popping off the top with his free hand. He leans forward as best he can, pressing the bottle to Cas’ lips, and Cas drinks eagerly the minute it touches his lips, not having realized just how thirsty he really was. Dean smiles softly, the teasing in his voice threaded with adoring amusement.

 

“Slow down, Cas. Last thing we need is for you to die ‘cause you choked on a drink of water.”

 

Cas shoots him a little glare, but slows, taking a couple more long, relieving drinks, before pulling back, letting Dean recap the bottle and return it to the bedside table. Cas sighs, licking his lips, and Dean hums in acknowledgement, shooting Cas another smile.

 

“Good, yeah?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Good,” Dean hums, placing his hand back over Cas’. Cas considers, before tilting his hand, tipping it to curl it with Dean’s, fingers lacing together. Dean seems like he doesn’t notice, his smile still on, but his grip seems to tighten a little, warmly, returning the affection Cas is putting through in his own grasp of Dean’s rougher hand. Cas sighs, eyes flickering around the room before returning to Dean.

 

“What happened?” he whispers, watching Dean’s smile fall. “I… I remember there being sirens. I remember you screaming… but nothing else after that.” He shakes his head. “Just waking up here.”

 

Dean sighs. “It’s… well. It _feels_ like a long story. S’probably not as long as I think.”

 

Cas frowns, brows tilting in confusion. “What do you mean?”

 

Dean grimaces. “Lucifer got away,” he says quietly, and Cas’ heart skips a beat. “Hey. Listen. Don’t freak out, alright?”

 

“Don’t _freak out?”_ Cas hisses in belief. “Are you _kidding?_ Lucifer is _free!”_

 

“I know,” Dean says, still scowling. “But for now we can’t worry about that.”

 

“What do you _mean_ we can’t _worry about that?_ Of _course_ we have to worry about it!” Cas insists, looking at Dean with a mixed expression of fierceness and fear. “He’ll come back for us! We’re marked, Dean!”

 

Dean turns up his nose a little. “We are _not_ marked,” he says firmly. “Fucking Sharpie comes off, Cas. A number doesn’t _mean_ anything. We _got away.”_

 

Cas is already shaking his head, though. “He’ll come after us,” he repeats firmly. “The marker comes off, but we’re _marked._ We’re the final pieces of his ritual. And he’s going to keep hunting us, haunting us, until he dies… or we do.”

 

A shiver runs through Dean, on the inside, at least; on the outside, he just purses his lips, taking a moment to watch Cas before slowly exhaling. “Fine,” he says quietly, before pointedly relaxing his shoulders. “But right now, we’re fine.”

 

_“Dean.”_

 

“I mean it,” Dean insists. “You’ve got a team outside watching you, and we’ve got people trying to crack whatever tracer hid Lucifer’s signal. Maybe it’ll give us some clues. But for now, you’re hurt, and you need to rest. To recover. So do I. So that’s what we’re gonna do.”

 

“But--”

 

“No arguments, Cas,” Dean presses, squeezing Cas’ hand. “I mean it.”

 

Cas looks like he wants to argue, or maybe dislocate Dean’s other shoulder, but instead, after a minute, he huffs, giving in silently. Dean smiles easily, amiably.

 

“Are you hungry? Sammy promised me some Big Macs….” He wiggles his brows a little, playfully, and Cas actually smiles, just a little, amused.

 

“M’not sure I can stomach _that,”_ Cas says. “But pasta sounds wonderful.”

 

Dean grins. “Pasta it is. When he comes back around, I’ll let him know.”

 

Cas rolls his eyes. “Your brother can’t buy me food, Dean,” he says.

 

“Why not?”

 

“You guys just had me in _custody.”_

 

“So?” Dean asks, flippant. “You’re not in custody anymore, are you?”

 

“Am I?” Cas asks, smiling weakly. “Maybe you all want to question me some more?”

 

Dean hums. “Nah.” He pauses. “Well….”

 

Cas raises his brows. Dean considers his words before speaking.

 

“You still never told me how you knew my name,” Dean says slowly. “Or how you knew all of my shit. You rattled off stuff like you were there, man. How did you know my history?”

 

Cas’ face does something funny, just for an instant, but it’s gone before Dean can really read it, the little smile returned to his lips. Something unpleasant curls in Dean’s gut, but he doesn’t know how to define it.

 

“Sure you didn’t ever pick up a whore from the street?” Cas murmurs, and Dean winces a little.

 

“I’m sorry about that. I am, really.”

 

Cas shakes his head. “Dean, it’s fine. I know you’ve got to say… _things_ when you’re questioning suspects. I understand.”

 

“Still,” Dean says. “Lemme apologize for it now, okay?” He flushes brightly. “I… because I... um….”

 

He coughs, uncomfortable, and his eyes flicker to his and Cas’ hands, lingering on the twine of their fingers. They’ve only known each other for a couple of days, and in the first alone they’d not only been enemies, but Cas had let Dean jump his bones like the situation around them wasn’t happening, like Dean had picked him up at a bar with a round or five of shots in his belly instead of taken the man into his home for protection from a psycho killer. It’s so-so fucking unconventional, so unideal, it all is and was, but… but something in Dean’s heart feels right like this, with Cas’ hand in his own, sitting at Cas’ side. Dean’s never liked romance, really, or intimacy beyond sex, but in just a day or two, somehow, the not-criminal before him has managed to sneak his way into Dean’s heart without his permission, without his knowledge. And if Dean thinks about it, honestly… he almost doesn’t mind. He almost feels like this really is _right._ Like this was… was meant to be.

 

As if Cas understands, and Dean really thinks the man might, he squeezes Dean’s hand gingerly, his own face pink when Dean looks back up at him. Cas swallows, seeming just as timid, as unsure, as Dean feels. And yet, it feels… right. Too right to explain.

 

“Maybe we can… get dinner?” Cas asks carefully, and Dean’s heart thumps excitedly. “We could, um… once we get out of the hospital… I mean, if you want to… I could answer whatever questions you want me to….”

 

He goes red, stumbling, fumbling for words, but Dean relieves him, quickly gathering his own wits, returning the hand-squeeze Cas is giving him.

 

“That sounds great,” Dean says, and a weak smile finds his lips without his permission, working only on the orders of the warmth building in his chest, a happy warmth he hasn’t felt in a long time. Something like… adoration. “That sounds great, Cas.”

 

A smile comes over Cas’ lips, matching Dean’s, and the sight of it makes Dean’s heart jump. The serial killer that wants to rip their guts out is still roaming free, dangerous and apparently, carting very indecisive business partners, those shadows in a dark room, hiding out, waiting, maybe even more dangerous than Lucifer, but somehow, for just this moment, it feels like it all couldn’t be further from Dean’s giddy mind. Dean grins, and makes an abrupt decision, pulling his hand from Cas’ and holding it out, almost laughing at Cas’ bemused expression.

 

“Let’s, uh… try again?” Dean offers. “Outside of… of this stupid job. This stupid situation.” He laughs a little. “M’Dean. Dean Winchester.”

 

Cas smiles, and takes Dean’s hand, shaking it lightly, looking truly happy. “Castiel Novak.” Neither of them release, fingers winding together again. “It’s really… really nice to meet you.”

 

“It’s nice to meet you too, Cas. It really is.”

 

~*~

 

_Chicago, Illinois._

 

“Roman!” Lucifer snarls, stalking into the office that looks more like a penthouse with a few office-like things shoved inside. “We need to have a _chat.”_

 

The man sitting at the long mahogany desk across the room lifts his eyes from the computer before him, and raises his brows at Lucifer’s boiling frustration, sitting back in his chair, fingers steepling together, elbows propped on the armrests of his chair. His lips quirk a little, a gross little smirk slipping over his mouth. “Lucifer,” he says, hooking one leg over the other. “I see you’re in a good mood.”

 

“What was _that?”_ Lucifer snarls, eyes filled with fury as he stalks up to Roman’s desk, slamming his hand down on the desktop. “What the _fuck_ did you do! I was so _close!”_

 

“We can talk about it, if you’d like to sit down.”

 

“No, I would _not_ like to sit down,” Lucifer spits. “This isn’t a _game.”_

 

“Of course it is,” Roman hums. “Your whole… _situation,”_ he drawls the word with a dry, demeaning tone, “is a _game._ You know that.”

 

“What does _that_ mean?” Lucifer hisses dangerously. “We had a deal. We had a _fucking_ deal.”

 

“And we still do,” Roman replies easily. “I really don’t care about your fun, Lucifer, as long as I get my end of the bargain done.”

 

“It’s not _fun,”_ Lucifer growls angrily. “It’s _serious._ And if our deal is still on, then why did you _do that?”_

 

“Because something came up that was going to interfere with our plans,” Roman drawls, sitting up straight again, leaning his elbows on his desk. “I attempted to call and warn you. It’s not my fault that you don’t answer while in the middle of your… activities. I sent a car, didn’t I? And you got out fine. This problem was bigger than your devil doo-hickey.”

 

Lucifer grits his teeth. “What kind of _problem?”_ he demands. “Unless you pulled me away for _nothing?”_

 

“Have you been listening to a word I’ve said?” Roman snaps, smile falling away with the faux calm tone of his voice. He shifts, standing slowly, face deadly serious. “I had you pulled out of there because we were looking at a much greater threat than those damn Winchesters and their stupid friends hauling you to jail.”

 

Lucifer snorts. “They wouldn’t have found me if you hadn’t told them where I was,” he reminds Roman in an angry hiss.

 

“That’s right,” Roman says coldly. “Because someone else already _had_ found you.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

Roman moves slowly around his desk, fingers dragging along the polished wood. “Edgar contacted me,” he says, voice low, as if they were being listened to by the very walls, ready to betray. “Your brother has been sighted.”

 

Lucifer freezes, goes instantly stiff. “You mean….”

 

“Of course I mean.”

 

Lucifer curses, and slams his hand down again. “Where?”

 

“We saw one of his men stationed not too far from the warehouse,” Roman says seriously. “Edgar’s team took care of him, and the ones with him, but we knew your brother wasn’t far.”

 

Lucifer clenches his fists. “So he’s onto us,” he snarls. “You said he was off our trail.”

 

“And he was,” Roman shoots back. “Until about an hour before I called in the tip to the police.”

 

“Is he still working a lead on us?”

 

“I’ve had Natalie and Edgar set up false trails.”

 

“They won’t work. He’s too smart for that. He knows what we’re up to, and he won’t fall for stupid tricks.”

 

“He’s intelligent, yes,” Roman agrees. “But maybe we can, at the least, momentarily distract him. It’ll give us some time to plan.”

 

“For?”

 

“For our next move, obviously.”

 

“We need to act _now,”_ Lucifer insists.

 

“No, we don’t,” Roman says, shaking his head. “Not with your brother this close. We have to monitor our actions now. We have to be careful. Especially you. You can’t just go running around in broad daylight, chopping off limbs and leaving dead bodies everywhere.”

 

“My brother and his pet are the last two I need,” Lucifer says fiercely. “I marked them already. It has to be them. I need to get them back so I can finish the job.”

 

“And in time, you will have them,” Roman agrees, leaning back against his desk. “But for the moment, that’s not happening. Until your brother is out of the way, or at least running in circles while we draw straight lines, we’re caught where we are. Have patience. Or, at least, use the little patience you have.”

 

Lucifer sneers, but relents. “Fine,” he snaps. “But I want this taken care of. _Soon.”_

 

“Trust me,” Roman hums. “It’ll be taken care of. Then we won’t have to worry about Michael, or any of _this,”_ he makes a circular motion, gesturing to everything around him, “anymore.”

 

He smiles easily, the smirk returning, ugly on his face. “You’ll get your little brother and his delicious friend back soon enough. I give you my word on that,” he hums. “As long as you find me who I’m looking for.”

 

Lucifer rolls his eyes. “I’m getting close. I’ve nearly found her.”

 

“Good.”

 

Lucier huffs, crossing his arms. “You haven’t told me why this woman is so important.”

 

“You believe I owe you an explanation?”

 

“You know why I’m doing what I am,” Lucifer says, looking at the man with a mixture of seriousness and curiosity. “Why is this bitch so special?”

 

Roman considers. “She’s… the key to our company’s success.”

 

“What does that mean?”

 

Roman shrugs. “Nothing you need worry about.”

 

Lucifer huffs, but nods, not caring to push any further. “I’ll keep on with it, then.”

 

“Good. Glad to hear it.” Roman peers at him with distaste. “Now, go take a _shower,_ would you? You smell disgusting, and that’s coming from _me.”_

 

Lucifer glares, but turns to leave, heading to the door, stopping at Roman’s words.

 

“Remember what I said,” Roman purrs, warning in his smooth voice. “Leave the Winchester and your brother until we’re sure that Michael is… detained. After all….”

 

He smiles. “You can’t exactly get your… ‘wings’,” he airquotes alongside his words, “back if you’re dead, can you?” He hums, dropping his hands back to his sides. “The last thing we need is the Winchesters, or your little twit of a brother, realizing what’s going on. Figuring out what we know. The shadows are safety, my friend. Stick to them. For now, they’re the only secure place we have.”

 

He hums, moving back around his desk, taking his seat. “Go on, then. Rest. You’ll need your energy for… what comes next.” He finishes there, returning to his computer, the air tense between them, vibrating with… something. Almost like foreboding.

 

Lucifer says nothing for a moment, silent, before turning to walk away, making it from the room this time. The door closes with a click behind him. He heads down the hall, hands twitching, anger burning in his stomach, keeping his mind on his goal to keep him from throttling Dick Roman in his own fucking office.

 

He’ll get his hands on those two, on Castiel and his little officer pet. Nothing will keep him from his task, especially not with results so near, so in reach of him that he can almost grab them. _Oh yes,_ he grins to himself. _I will most certainly get you back, baby brother. I_ will _have my ‘wings’ back. And you’ll help me, whether you want to or not. It’s your destiny, after all._

 

_See you soon, little brother._


End file.
